ICALEL is an acronym for the Calabar International Conference on African Literature and the English Language founded and chaired by African scholar and critic Ernest Emenyonu. At the centre of the conference are African writers and critics from all over the world. The first conference entitled “The Woman as a Writer in Africa” was held at the University of Calabar auditorium in May 1981 and Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo was keynote speaker. The themes of 1982 namely “Literature in African Languages” and “Writing Books for Children” featured Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Bessie Head as keynote speakers. Till date a host of African writers have featured at the conference including Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chinweizu, Dennis Brutus, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Elechi Amadi, Ken Saro Wiwa, Chukwuemeka Ike, Nurrudin Farah, Syl Cheney Coker, to mention a few.
Famous quotes containing the words conference, african, literature, english and/or language:
“For 350 years we have been taught that reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man. Football’s place is to add a patina of character, a deference to the rules and a respect for authority.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“... the Black woman in America can justly be described as a “slave of a slave.””
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen—but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)