Nigerian literary critic, Professor Abiola Irele dies in US

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Late Prof Abiola Irele

Nigerian academic and literary critic, Professor Francis Abiola Irele, is dead. He was 81

Irele, once described as the doyen of Africanist literary scholars worldwide, died in the United States on Sunday.

He was born in Ora (present Edo State, Nigeria) in 1936 and once served as the Provost of Kwara State University in Ilorin, Nigeria.

Before moving back to Nigeria, Irele was a Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.

Though born in Ora, Irele moved to Enugu very early in his life. While he was Edo and was born in an area in which Ora was predominantly spoken, the first language he learned was Igbo; he learned Igbo from the servants who worked for his father and took care of him growing up.

After moving to Lagos in 1940, he began to speak Yoruba. In 1943, after a fight…

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