[Black History – African Literature – Nigeria] Bâ, Amadou Hampâté; Damas, Léon; James, E.A.; Mphahlele, Es’kia; et al.

Black Orpheus: A Journal of African and Afro-American Literature. [No. 6, November 1959]

Ibadan, Nigeria: General Publications Section, Ministry of Education, November 1959. 60 pp magazine measuring 7 ½ x 9 inches, in paper wraps. Wraps quite worn with some tears especially at spine, some staining, with loss to lower right corner; very good minus. Contents generally excellent with one manuscript marking and a few areas of damage to gutters. Overall very good. Item #List3835

The November 1959 edition of Black Orpheus: A Journal of African and Afro-American Literature. The magazine was founded in 1957 by Jewish German-born Ulli Beier, who came to Nigeria in the late 1940s to teach anglophone literature. Beier intended the magazine to expose aspiring African writers to the literary work both of their fellow Africans and of African Americans; he was particularly inspired by the works of Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire.[1] Starting in the 1960s, the magazine would be funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom which, unbeknownst to its editors and contributors, was in turn funded by the CIA.

This edition contains works by significant African and diaspora writers, including Amadou Hampâté Bâ of Mali, Léon Damas of French Guiana, Es’kia Mphahlele of South Africa, and Gabriel Okara of Nigeria. The book reviews section includes an important early review by Ghanaian poet and writer Georgmbeeyi Adali-Mortty of Things Fall Apart (1958), Chinua Achebe’s debut novel. Beier’s article, “Two Yoruba Painters,” includes twelve pages of illustrations, and the magazine is illustrated throughout.

[1] Peter Benson, “‘Border Operators’: Black Orpheus and the Genesis of Modern African Art and Literature,” Research in African Literatures 14, no. 4, Special Issue on African Literary History (Winter, 1983): 431–473.

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Price: $950.00