Giant iroko tree of African studies falls

Nigerian scholar Abiola Irele, who died in Boston this month at the age of 81, was undoubtedly the foremost prophet of the concept of negritude, to which he devoted his intellectual career for five decades.

I first met him as an undergraduate while studying German at the University of Ibadan in 1985, when he was head of the modern languages department and a professor of French. Later in my academic career, I would meet “Prof” in diverse US cities during annual African Studies Association conferences, where we talked about issues relating to Nigeria, Africa and the world.

After Irele’s death, tributes flooded in from around the world. Harvard-based Nigerian scholar Biodun Jeyifo described him as “indisputably the world’s greatest scholar of negritude”. Kenya’s Princeton-based Simon Gikandi noted that “more than any other scholar of his generation, Irele brought a forceful intellect, a cosmopolitan outlook, and authoritative voice to the study of African literature”.

US academic Kenneth Harrow eulogised him as “a major voice for African studies, a generous humanist, an insightful scholar … an iroko tree in our forest of scholars”. Irele studied at the University of Ibadan before obtaining his doctorate in French literature from Sorbonne University. Returning to Africa in 1966, he put his pan-Africanism into practice, teaching at Ghana’s Legon University as well as the universities of Ife, Lagos and Ibadan, while editing the journal Black Orpheus.

A deep thinker and fluent writer, his work focused obsessively on negritude – an anticolonial cultural movement that affirmed the worth of black people — with a particular prioritising of its two leading figures: Senegal’s Léopold Senghor and Martinique’s Aimé Césaire.

He shared Senghor and Césaire’s love of the French language and culture, but was also deeply immersed in his own traditional African cultures. He often proselytised in the wilderness, sometimes discovering an oasis through which he could quench the thirst of the few faithful devotees of a dying religion.

Irele firmly believed that negritude and pan-Africanism would be essential foundations for the reconstruction of a new African identity. He thus sought to keep updating the doctrine for new generations.

The ultimate cultural bridge builder, Irele continuously interpreted the francophone world of black poetry and prose for an anglophone audience. He was the ultimate Renaissance Man: a bon vivant and connoisseur of opera, wine and good food. He was as comfortable with the Greek and Roman classics as he was with African art and music.

He discussed Yoruba and Zulu linguistics and poetry as easily as he sang Mozart and recited Dante. One of the often unheralded aspects of Irele’s life was his tireless mentoring of two generations of younger scholars. He taught at Ohio and Harvard universities and edited a series on African and Caribbean literature as well as the Transition journal.

The last time I saw Prof was two weeks before his death. He presented a paper on Senghor at a three-day conference on “The Pan-African Pantheon” hosted by my Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.

Even after missing his connecting flight, Irele still made the 16-hour odyssey. He was in great spirits, looking forward to writing a series of essays for the prestigious WEB Du Bois Institute at Harvard on The African Renaissance: From Léopold Senghor to Thabo Mbeki.

Unfortunately, this innovative book will never be written, which is a great loss to the field of pan-African thought. During the conference in Johannesburg, Irele gave me a copy of his 2011 collection of essays on The Negritude Moment. His inscription in the book simply reads: “To Adekeye with admiration!”

It is a book I shall treasure forever. Irele has himself now joined the ranks of the ancestors and will take his rightful place among “After Africa’s” literary deities.

The Black Orpheus and last prophet of negritude has finally entered the “Dead Poet’s Society”.

Prof Adebajo is director of the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation.