Writing
His most famous poem is "Piano and Drums". Another popular poem, "You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed", is a frequent feature of anthologies. Okara is very concerned with what happens when the ancient culture of Africa is faced with modern Western culture, as in his poem "Once Upon a Time". He pursues that theme in his novel The Voice (Africana Publishing: ISBN 0-8419-0015-9) Its protagonist Okolo, like countless post-colonial Africans, is hunted by society and haunted by his own ideals.
In addition to his poetry and fiction, Okara has also written plays and features for broadcasting.
Many of his manuscripts were destroyed during the Nigerian Civil War.
Bibliography
- 1970 The Voice - novel
- 1978 The Fisherman's Invocation - poetry
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Okara
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“Life.—No, I’ve nothing to teach you about it for the moment. May be writing about it another week.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape, I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Success and failure on the public level never mattered much to me, in fact I feel more at home with the latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the last couple of years.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)