Labyrinths, at a price..
Want a copy of the 96 page collection of poetry Labyrinths by Christopher Okigbo? Its yours for just UK363.53 from Amazon. I was reminded of this rarest of works by this piece in last Sunday's Observer - Okigbo's work is Ben Okri's forgotten gem. Okri, ever the master of profound prose, writes,
Labyrinths is an interlinked volume of poems. Christopher Okigbo was an extraordinarily gifted poet who died in 1967 during the civil war in Nigeria. It is his only volume of poems, a meditation on everything from our origins to our obscure destinies; it's autobiographical; and it's a piercing lament on war. I think of him as our Lorca. He belongs to that class of poet who brings out one work and that work is a world. It says everything he needed to say in his lifetime. It should be read by everyone in every country. I can't think of him without the shadow of tears in my heart.
It is such a shame that along with many other works of Nigerian letters, Labyrinths is out of print and forgotten..
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6 comments:
you're right his books cost a pretty penny. i got a copy a few weeks ago for about $150. i was lucky i guess as all thats left seem to be the expensive ones.
it was a nice first edition too, so worth the money
Mea culpa.
Stirring somewhere in my faded memory is the name Okigbo, but nothing more. Your persistent references to him made me look further. I'm somewhat alarmed I didn't know more about Okigbo before now, a situation fortunately rectified.
Amazing, the things Nigeria hides from itself and the world.
highly recommend passages about Christoper Okigbo in You Must Set Forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka. (pls underline bk title for me, cant)
Its interesting to read about Christopher Okigbo in your blog today. Such a man. I'm recently going through a kind of obsession about Biafra after reading 'Half of a yellow Sun' In the past few days I have researched on the prominent events and names that stood out during the war. Okigbo is one those i wished survived the war.
The war affects us all, the one that fought and the one yet unborn. It partly robs us all of the dream that was once Nigeria. Rather, it crystallized the ethnically-fragmented entity called Nigeria.
Just ran into your blog searching for a reference on Okigbo. You may find interest in our online magazine which devoted the entire September 2007 issue on Christopher Okigbo and his work. check out http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/0907 for the Christopher Okigbo special.
Nnorom Azuonye
Managing Editor, Sentinel Poetry (Online)
see
a video meditation on Okigbo's poetry at
http://meditationonokigboslabyrinths.blogspot.com/
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