Ike, (Vincent) Chukwuemeka 1931-

views updated

IKE, (Vincent) Chukwuemeka 1931-

PERSONAL: Born April 28, 1931, in Ndikelionwu, Anambra, Nigeria; son of Charles and Dinah (Ezeani) Ike; married Adebimpe Olurinsola Abimbolu (a librarian, professor of library science, and educational administrator), December 13, 1959; children: Osita Naanyelugo Adeolu Olusanya (son). Ethnicity: "Igbo." Education: Attended Government College, Umuahia, Nigeria; University College, Ibadan, Nigeria, B.A., 1955; Stanford University, M.A., 1966.

ADDRESSES: Office—Chinwuba House, Ndikelionwu Postal Agency, Via Awka, Anambra State 420001, Nigeria. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Teacher at a primary school in Amichi, Nigeria, 1950-51; teacher at a girls' secondary school, Nkwerre, Nigeria, 1955-56; University College, Ibadan, Nigeria, administrative assistant and assistant registrar, 1957-60; University of Nigeria, Nsukka, deputy registrar, 1960-63, registrar and secretary to council, 1963-71; West African Examinations Council, Accra, Ghana, registrar and chief executive, 1971-79; Emekike and Co., executive chair, 1979—. Daily Times of Nigeria Ltd., director, 1971-87; Times Leisure Services Ltd., chair, 1977-1979; University Press Ltd., director, 1978-2002; Nigerian Book Foundation, chair, 1991-93, president and chief executive, 1993—. Nigerian Universities Joint Superannuation Scheme, trustee, 1964-71; University of Nigeria, chair of planning and management committee, 1970; University of Jos, visiting professor, 1983-85; University of Benin, pro-chancellor and chair of governing council, 1990-91; Anambra State University of Science and Technology, pro-chancellor and chair of governing council, 2001—. Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO, chair of culture sector, 1986-91; Nigerian Copyright Council, member of governing board and chair of technical committee, 1989-94; National Anti-Piracy Committee, chair, 1991-94. Republic of Biafra, provincial refugee officer in charge of Umuahia Province, 1968-69; headquarters scout commander in charge of Nsukka Province, 1970-71. Anglican Communion, member of General Synod of the Church of Nigeria, 1995-2002.

MEMBER: International PEN (vice president of Nigerian Centre, 1989-91), International Association for Educational Assessment (member of executive committee from Africa, 1975-78), Association of Nigerian

Authors (member of executive committee, 1982-83), Nigerian Institute of Management (fellow), Bible Society of Nigeria (life member), University of Ibadan Alumni Association (life member).

AWARDS, HONORS: UNESCO travel grant, 1954; fellow, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1962; Ford Foundation grant, 1966; honorary fellow, City and Guilds of London Institute of Publishers, 1978; honorary fellow, University of Iowa, 1987; named distinguished friend of the council, West African Examinations Council, 1994; D.Litt., University of Nigeria, 1998, and University of Lagos, 2000; distinguished alumnus award, University of Ibadan Alumni Association, 2000; decorated officer, Order of the Federal Republic (Nigeria), 2001.

WRITINGS:

fiction

Toads for Supper, Harvill Press (London, England), 1965.

The Naked Gods, Harvill Press (London, England), 1970.

The Potter's Wheel, Harvill Press (London, England), 1973.

Sunset at Dawn: A Novel about Biafra, Harvill Press (London, England), 1976, reprinted, University Press (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1993.

The Chicken Chasers, Fontana (Douglas, Isle of Man), 1980.

Expo '77, Fontana (London, England), 1980.

The Bottled Leopard, University Press (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1985.

Our Children Are Coming!, Spectrum Books (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1990.

The Search, Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1991.

To My Husband from Iowa, Malthouse Press (Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria), 1996.

Conspiracy of Silence (novel), Longman Nigeria (Lagos, Nigeria), 2001.

The Accra Riviera (short stories), Oyster St. Iyke (Lagos, Nigeria), 2001.

nonfiction

University Development in Africa: The Nigerian Experience, Oxford University Press (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1976.

(Editor, with Emmanuel Obiechina and John Anenechukwu Umeh) The University of Nigeria, 1960-1985: An Experiment in Higher Education, University of Nigeria Press (Nsukka, Nigeria), 1986.

How to Become a Published Writer, Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria (Ibadan, Nigeria), 1991.

(Editor) Creating a Conducive Environment for Book Publishing: Proceedings of the Second Annual National Conference on Book Development, Nigerian Book Foundation (Awka, Nigeria), 1996.

(Editor) Meeting the Books Needs of the Rural Family, Nigerian Book Foundation (Awka, Nigeria), 1997.

(Editor) Directory of Nigerian Book Development, Nigerian Book Foundation (Awka, Nigeria), 1998.

(Editor) Ndikelionwu and the Spread of Christianity, privately printed (Ndikelionwu, Nigeria), 2000.

(Editor) The Book in 21st Century Nigeria and Universal Basic Education, Nigerian Book Foundation (Awka, Nigeria), 2000.

(Editor) Creating and Sustaining a Reading Culture, Nigerian Book Foundation (Awka, Nigeria), 2000.

Contributor to books and to periodicals. Member of editorial committee, African Writer, 1961-62; founding member of editorial committee, Okike, 1970-71.

ADAPTATIONS: The Potter's Wheel was adapted as a textbook for foreign speakers of English, abridged by Lewis Jones, illustrated by Anthea Eames, and published by Collins (Glasgow, Scotland), 1986.

SIDELIGHTS: Chukwuemeka Ike has been a successful novelist both within Nigeria and beyond its borders since the release of his first novel, Toads for Supper, in 1965. That debut was a comedy with strongly realistic elements, about a young man from a village who goes to the University of Nigeria and finds his head turned. Protagonist Amobi has been groomed and financed by his whole village to become its first university-educated resident; the village has even built him a special hut to study in, and the girl to whom he has been betrothed since childhood has been sent to a teacher-training college in order to be a better match for him. Once at the university, however, Amobi decides to change his major from English and medicine to history; worse, in the view of his Ibo family, he falls in love with, and betroths himself to, a pretty Yoruba girl he meets on campus. Complicating matters is the fact that a Lagos prostitute named Sweetie accuses him of fathering her child.

Returning to his village, Amobi encounters the displeasure of the entire village, especially in the person of his father, an uneducated but wise and powerful figure who bombards Amobi with what a London Times Literary Supplement reviewer called "paternal homilies." The trouble with the prostitute is easily smoothed out since Amobi is in fact not the father of the child; his romantic entanglements, however, require a more difficult resolution that did not satisfy either the Times Literary Supplement reviewer or another British critic, Edwin Morgan of the New Statesman. Nevertheless, the last page was, for Morgan, the only flaw in the otherwise "unassuming, humorous," and "wellobserved" novel, in which satirical insights blended neatly with "warm feeling for the realities of village life."

The critic for the Times Literary Supplement, appreciating the "wry poetry" with which Ike illustrated generational conflict, called the "unpretentious" novel "a pleasing comedy, animated by a fluent, good-humoured intelligence." The preeminent flaw pointed out by the Times Literary Supplement reviewer was an unevenness and a rushed quality in parts of the book, particularly the ending. Novelist Shiva Naipaul, reviewing Toads for Supper for Books and Bookmen, enjoyed its "steadying realism" and its "fine writing," noting that the latter was to be found in the descriptions of village life and in the "moving" characterizations of Amodi's father, mother, and friends. Like the other two reviewers, Naipaul had reservations about the ending, which he termed a "plunge … into sudden tragedy and melodrama." Naipaul had words of praise, however, for Ike's cataloguing of "the dissonances in modern Nigerian society": tensions between tribes, between villagers and university graduates, between Christianity and native religion, between white professors and black students, and even between "the girls who can dance the high life and the girls who can't."

After his reputation had been made by Toads for Supper, Ike continued in his already-established career in educational administration, which had begun with his first teaching experiences in the early 1950s. In the 1970s he branched out into newspaper publishing and other businesses while continuing to produce a steady stream of novels, short stories, and occasional nonfiction books. The latter genre includes a study of Nigerian higher education, in 1976, and a book on how to become a published writer, in 1991.