Nigeria novelist Professor Isidore Okpewho died at the age of 74years

A foremost scholar of Oral Literature and award-winning
novelist, Isidore Okpewho, has died at 74.
Prof. Okpewho died peacefully at a hospital in Binghamton, a
town in Upstate New York where he had lived and taught since
1991.
He was a prolific author, co-author and editor of about 14
books, dozens of articles and a seminal booklet, A Portrait of
the Artist as a Scholar.
His teaching career spanned University of New York at Buffalo
(1974-76), University of Ibadan (1976-90), Harvard University
(1990-91), and State University of New York at Binghamton.
According to Canada-based Nduka Otiono, quoting family
sources, the distinguished Professor at State University of New
York, Binghamton, passed away on September 4, 2016,
surrounded by family members.
Although he battled illness recently, the scholar and humanist
demonstrated exceptional capacity in dealing with his
challenging health conditions.
Indeed, only two years ago, his last book to which he had long
committed his intellectual resources, Blood on the Tides: The
Ozidi Saga and Oral Epic Narratology, was published by
University of Rochester Press.
Born on November 9, 1941 in Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria,
Okpewho grew up in Asaba, his maternal hometown, where he
attended St. Patrick’s College, Asaba. He proceeded to the
University College, Ibadan, for his university education. He
graduated with a First Class Honours in Classics, and moved
on to launch a glorious career: first in publishing at Longman
Publishers, and then as an academic after obtaining his PhD
from the University of Denver, USA. He crowned his
certification with a D.Litt from University of London.
With his two earliest seminal academic monographs, The Epic
in Africa: Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance (1979)
and Myth in Africa: A Study of Its Aesthetic and Cultural
Relevance (1983), Okpewho quickly established his reputation
as a first-rate scholar and pioneer of Oral Literature in Africa.
For his distinctive and prolific output he was honoured with a
string of international academic and non-academic awards
that included the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), in
Humanities for the year 2010.
As a writer noted, “Recognition for Professor Okpewho’s work
has come with some of the most prestigious fellowships in
the humanities: from the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars (1982), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
(1982), Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
at Stanford (1988), the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard
(1990), National Humanities Center in North Carolina (1997),
and the Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2003). He
was also elected Folklore Fellow International by the Finnish
Academy of the Sciences in Helsinki (1993).”
Prof. Okpewho also served as President of the International
Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA).