In the vast silence of their isolation, the traditional Igbos have learnt the ways of living in harmony with nature. From their origin in distant time, they have kept a sacred perspective on the natural world. In our age, there is the need for traditional wisdoms to retain their validity and be intrinsic to our philosophic and scientific perceptions of the cosmos. We cannot do without their knowledge, their spiritual perspective, and their deep faith in the harmony of all nature. Ignoring these qualities has profound environmental implications. Global warming, environmental pollution, and the exhaustion of nature's resources are but a few of the symptoms of the nature's experiences as we continue to mistreat it in order to satisfy our own ends. This work helps us to realise that wherever we are, we are a part of nature. All the things around us are as presences, representing forces and powers of life that are not ours and yet are all part of us. Then we find them reflecting in ourselves, because we are nature, though not identical with it.

The study of the myths of preliterate society is at times a painstaking venture because of the often rather unfortunate misinterpretation of these myths as false stories based on imagination. But myth, as a lived religious experience of a particular cultural society asserts the necessity for expression of transcendent realities which in turn are expressed in symbolic forms. It governs the faith and controls the conduct of the people who live the myths in their ritual ceremonies. As a narrative resurrection of primordial reality with normative influence myth satisfies deep religious needs, fixes customs, sanctions and modes of behaviour. This work undertakes to show that religious myths of the preliterate society - especially the myths of creation of man and the origin of death - are not illusive stories concocted to deceive common mind but rather mental deductions of the preliterate mind of the history of his religion, the knowledge of his origin, death and the hereafter.

“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe.” —Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.

Immerse yourself in the vibrant world of Igbo heroes, deities, creatures, folktales, and myths, including Chineke the creator, Ana, Igwe, Anyanwu, Ekwensu, and more, plus the story of the first mermaid, the legend of Udenolu the shapeshifting crow, and the story of the tortoise and the Lion King. The first definitive collection of Igbo legends and traditions for kids, this book explores the mythological origins of the Igbo people, the ancient Nri Kingdom, and Igbo cosmology before delving into the Alusi, or the core Igbo deities. Following this introduction to the pantheon of gods and goddesses, a collection of the most popular Igbo myths, folktales, and legends will immerse kids in exciting stories of tricksters, shapeshifters, and heroes, including: The Wrestler Whose Back Never Touched the Ground Ojiugo, the Rare Gem The Tortoise and the Birds, or The Origin Story of Sea Turtles Ngwele Aghuli, Why the Crocodile Lives Alone How Death Came to Be And more! The perfect book for kids who are fascinated by Greek mythology or love the Rick Riordan series, Introduction to Igbo Mythology for Kids offers a fun look into the stories, history, and figures that characterize Igbo culture.

Between 1905 and 1939 a conspicuously tall white man with a shock of red hair, dressed in a silk shirt and white linen trousers, could be seen on the streets of Onitsha, in Eastern Nigeria. How was it possible for an unconventional, boy-loving Englishman to gain a social status among the local populace enjoyed by few other Europeans in colonial West Africa? In The Forger’s Tale: The Search for Odeziaku Stephanie Newell charts the story of the English novelist and poet John Moray Stuart-Young (1881–1939) as he traveled from the slums of Manchester to West Africa in order to escape the homophobic prejudices of late-Victorian society. Leaving behind a criminal record for forgery and embezzlement and his notoriety as a “spirit rapper,” Stuart-Young found a new identity as a wealthy palm oil trader and a celebrated author, known to Nigerians as “Odeziaku.” In this fascinating biographical account, Newell draws on queer theory, African gender debates, and “new imperial history” to open up a wider study of imperialism, (homo)sexuality, and nonelite culture between the 1880s and the late 1930s. The Forger’s Tale pays close attention to different forms of West African cultural production in the colonial period and to public debates about sexuality and ethics, as well as to movements in mainstream English literature.

Legend of the Walking Dead: Igbo Mythologies is a journey into the mysteries of life and death of the Igbos of Nigeria. The book draws readers into the Igbo people’s ancient and traditional beliefs about life and death. There is a very thin line dividing the land of the living and the land of the dead, so thin that spirits from both lands coexist. Sometimes, during the story, it is difficult to differentiate between the living and the dead. Both have bodies; the living existing in their bodies, while the dead exist in (are using) borrowed bodies. Fifteen-year-old Osondu has disappeared. His mother goes searching for her son and faces the same fate. She too goes missing. The gods are ever present, in control, and minister to both the living and the dead. This is because the gods minister to the spirits, not the bodies that harbor them. To the gods, the spirits of both the living and the dead are ever alive. The world of the traditional Igbo society is a world in which the dead visit and interact easily with the living. It is also a world in which most of the time the living are at the mercy of the gods.

In our modern and globalised world, the concept of human dignity has gained a haloed status and plays a decisive role in assessing the moral integrity of every human being. It provides a necessary foundation for the on-going human rights struggles. For the idea of human dignity ensures that our ever-growing complicated world wears a human face and that human beings are respected as absolute values in themselves. Afro-Igbo Mmad? and Thomas Aquinas' Imago Dei: An Inter-cultural Dialogue on Human Dignity attempts to expand the discourse on the concept of human dignity, which appears to have been parochially founded on the principles of Western cultures and ideologies. To deparochialise this discourse, it proposes an inter-cultural dialogue towards establishing common principles that define the foundation of human dignity, even when the approaches of diverse cultures to this foundation differ. The Afro-Igbo Mmadu and Thomas Aquinas' Imago Dei is, therefore, a model of such inter-cultural dialogue. It hosts a profound dialogue between the concept of Mmad? among the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria (Africa) and the concept of Imago Dei according to Thomas Aquinas of western European culture. The study discusses the rich values in these cultural concepts and acknowledges them as veritable tools for establishing human dignity as a universal and inalienable character of human beings. It, nonetheless, highlights the low points in these cultures that are discordant with this universal and inalienable character. The dialogue establishes that these two cultures could complementarily enrich one another and in this way mutually augment their shortcomings towards a more globalised and reinforced foundation of human dignity and the defence of the dignity of every individual human being.