Oral Forms of Nigerian Autobiography and Life Stories Routledge African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies Series

Oral Forms of Nigerian Autobiography and Life Storiesdiscusses the oral life stories and poems that Africans, particularly the Yoruba people, have told about the self and community over hundreds of years.

Disproving the Eurocentric argument that Africans didn?t produce stories about themselves, the author showcases a vibrant literary tradition of oral autobiographies in Africa and the diaspora. The oral auto/biographies studied in this book show that stories and poems about individuals and their communities have always existed in various African societies and they were used to record, teach, and document history, culture, tradition, identity, and resistance. Genres covered in the book include the panegyric, witches? and wizards? narratives, the epithalamium tradition, the hunter?s chant, and Udje of the Urhobo.

Providing an important showcase for oral narrative traditions this book will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers in African and Africana studies, literature and auto/biographical studies.

1. Introduction 2. The Place of Orí (Head) and Some Foundational Texts on Oríkì 3. Oríkì Praise Tradition in Yoruba Music 4. Niyi Osundare, Oríkì, and the Oral Auto/biographical Form 5. "I of the Valiant Stock": Yoruba Bridal Chant and the Auto/biographical Genre 6. "I am the hunter who kills elephants and baboons": The Auto/biographical Component of the Hunters’ Chant 7. When Witches and Wizards Are Narrators: Oral Auto/biography, Magical Realism, and Memory 8. The Auto/biographical Images of Africa in Udje and Tanure Ojaide’s Poetry 9. On Seeing Africa for the First Time: Orality, Panegyric, Memory, and the Diaspora in Isidore Okpewho’s Call Me By My Rightful Name 10. It Was Oríkì for You: Contemporary Reincarnations of Oral Life Story Genre in the Academy

Adetayo Alabi teaches African and other world literatures and cultures at the University of Mississippi, USA