Chukwuma Azuonye is Professor of African and African Diaspora Literatures and former Chair of the Africana Studies Department, University of Massachusetts, Boston. He received his B.A. in English with First Class Honors (summa cum laude) from the University of Nigeria (1972) and Ph.D. in African Literature with a thesis on the Igbo oral epic from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1980) where he was a Commonwealth Academic Staff Scholar. A specialist in oral literature and folklore, postcolonial modernist writing, African literary history, and Igbo language and literature, his research explores traditional esthetics and oral literary criticism, African systems of thought, and the interface between orality, literacy and transational modernist poetics. A literary editor, publisher, book designer, literary consultant, translator, and cultural activist, Professor Azuonye, was at the forefront of the movement of arts which has established Nsukka as a major center of modern Nigerian poetry from the mid-1960’s to 1991. With poetry, short stories and scholarly publications in books and journals in Africa, Europe and the Americas, his awards for research in African oral and modern literature include the Commonwealth Academic Staff Scholarship administered by the British Council (at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), the Fulbright Senior African Fellowship in Folklore and Folklife (at the University of Pennsylvania), the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship (University of Texas), and the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellowship (Du Bois Institute, Harvard University). His books include Nsukka Harvest: Poetry from Nsukka, 1966-1972 (1972); Dogon (Heritage Library of African Peoples) (1996); and Edo: Bini People of the Benin Kingdom (Heritage Library of African Peoples) (1996); Testaments of Thunder: Poems of Crisis and War (2002); and The Hero in Igbo Life and Literature (ed. with Donatus Nwoga) (2002). Forthcoming books include The Quest for Fulfillment: A Study of the Organic Unity of Okigbo’s Poetry (2011); Christopher Okigbo: Collected Poetry (an annotated critical edition) (2011); The Burden of Several Centuries: Papers from the 2007 Okigbo Conference (2011); and Christopher Okigbo: The Critical Groundwork (2011), Performance and Oral Literary Criticism; The Columbia Anthology of African Literature, co-edited with Steven Serafin; and Omenuko, an English translation of the classic1933 Igbo novel by Pita Nwana. Professor Azuonye’s college teaching career, which began at Nsukka in 1972, spans four leading Nigerian universities (Ibadan, Lagos, Nsukka, and Imo State, up till 1991when he joined the University of Massachusetts in 1992 as Chair of Africana Studies. A full professor since 1997. While in residence at the Du Bois Institute, he convened the 1st ever international Okigbo conference and completed a pilot study of the poet’s previously unpublished papers. A member of the Board of Directors of both the Chinua Achebe Foundation and the Christopher Okigbo Foundation, in 1994-2000, he served as the commissioning editor of several of the 56-volume series, The Heritage Library of African Peoples. A versatile scholar, his studies of the Igbo oral epic have successfully challenged and revolutionalized scholarly thinking worldwide on the genre of the epic. He is also a leading expert on the poetry of Christopher Okigbo. Beyond these areas of specialization, he has become engaged in redefining the canons of African letters through his bold agenda for a comprehensive history of African literature.
Books and Monographs
Christopher Okigbo: Complete Poetry, Edited with a Critical Introduction, Commentary and Notes. (2011)
This is the first ever collection of the complete poetry of Africa’s foremost transnational modernist...
Christopher Okigbo: The Critical Groundwork, 1962-2007, Edited with a Critical Introduction (2011)
This collection of essays covers the entire spectrum of Okigbo criticism from the earliest reviews...
The Burden of Several Centuries: Papers from the 2007 Christopher Okigbo Conference (2011)
A major landmark in the history of modern African letters, the 2007 Christopher Okigbo Conference,...
The Quest for Fulfillment: A Study of the Organic Unity of Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry (2011)
A comprehensive and systematic close-reading of Okigbo’s poetry from Four Canzones and other early poems...
Christopher Okigbo International Conference: A Multidisciplinary Celebration of Okigbo’s Legacy, September 19-23, 2007: An Illustrated Sourvenir Program (2007)
An illustrated sourvenir program of the 2007 Christopher Okigbo conference with introductory remarks on its...
Contributions to Books and Encyclopedias
Africanus, Sextus Julius, c. 160-c. 240, The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences and Culture (2008)
Bio-bibliographical profile of an early Christian African polymath and author.
Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm), 1703-c.1750’s, The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora (2008)
Bio-bibliographical profile of an African philosopher, poet, university professor and author from the Gold Coast...
Cugoano, Ottobah, c. 1745-1802, The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora (2008)
A bio-bibliographical profile of an African polemicist and abolitionist philosopher who flourished in Britain in...
Equiano, Olaudah, 1745-1797, The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora (2008)
A bio-bibliographical profile of an ex-slave African autobiographer, cultural nationalistm polemicist and abolitionist philosopher of...
Horton, James Africanus Beale, 1835-1883, The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora (2008)
A bio-bibliographical profile of 19th century author, political philosopher, and forerunner of pan-Africanism, Afrocentrism and...
Articles and Reviews in Journals
Feminist or Simply Feminine? Reflections on the Works of Nana Asma’u, A 19th Century West African Woman Poet, Intellectual & Social Activist, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism (2006)
Ijelè: Welcoming the King of Modern African Letters to Massachusetts, Sentinel Poetry Online: The International Journal of Poetry and Graphics (ISSN 1479-425X) (2002)
Review of Romanus Egudu's African Poetry of the Living Dead: Igbo Masquerade Poetry, Research in African Literatures (2000)
Poetry, Fiction & Other Creative Writing
My Journals, Projects & Occasional Publications
Ogbuu-Kay! The "After Laugh" Lingers On (Memorial Tribute to Ogbu Uke Kalu, 1942-2009), The Collected Papers of Ogbu Uke Kalu, Vol. 2, Christian Missions in Africa: Success, Ferment and Trauma, ed. Wilhelmina Kalu, Nimi Wariboko, and Toyin Falola (2010)
Remembering Adiele Afigbo (Memorial Tribute to Professor Adiele Ebereegbulam Afigbo), 1938-2009, Funeral Brochure (2009)
Memorial tribute to Professor Adiele Eberegbulem Afigbo(born 22 November 1937; died 9 March 2009) focussing...
Joshua, This is Your Story: Tribute to Joshua Uzoigwe, 1946-2005 (with Three Poems by the Deceased from Nsukka Harvest, 1972), Bulletin of the African Literature Association (2005)
The Nwagu Aneke Project (with Donatus Nwoga, Nelson Okonkwo, Pat Ndukwe, O. S. Ogwueleka, F. U. Okafor, P. N. Ngwu, and Iroha Udeh), A Collaborative Research Proposal (1991)
The Nwagu Aneke script is a syllabic system of writing, among the riverian Igbo people...