Content area
Full text
The Eagle in Ascendance: more papers from the Chinua Achebe International Symposium 1990, with new papers added, edited by Damian U. Opata. Ibadan: Heinemann, 2005. xiv +174 pp. ISBN 978129 666 6. £17.95
Damian Opata, no doubt, fitly stepped into the big shoes vacated by Edith Ihekweazu in creditably heading the editorial team for the production of this rewarding follow-up to the famous Eagle On Iroko: Selected Papers from the Chinua Achebe international Symposium 1990.
Chinua Achebe needs little introduction both to literary and non-literary scholars on Africa. The writer of the classic Things Fall Apart (1958), to mention just one of his most acclaimed works, has not only towered so high, like the full grown Iroko Tree, but has also soared, like the mature eagle, higher than other birds and can only perch atop the Iroko, the tallest of trees.
The Eagle in Ascendance is of course treading the path of the motif already established in Eagle on Iroko. For those who are not very familiar with the cultural philosophy of the Igbo, in which Chinua Achebe was grounded, the Eagle symbolism is taken from the conceptual imagery of an eagle, the handsome giant king of the birds, on an Iroko tree, the equally magnificent giant king of all trees. Hence the perplexed observer looks from the Eagle to the lroko and is at a loss as to which is more magnificent and evocative - the Eagle or the lroko. So one can only fully appreciate the aptness of the Eagle-On-Iroko appellation on Achebe if one keenly reflects on the true personality of the man: the finest intellect residing in the finest gentleman.
Chima Anyadike also made reference to the popular Achebeic lgbo imagery of a beautiful and revered masquerade dancing in the square which...