Seminal work
In the course of a varied career that included a stint in the army at a volatile period in Nigeria’s history, teaching, and positions as a government official, Amadi discovered himself in 1966 when his first novel, The Concubine, was published. Even five decades later, the story of a luckless widow that combines rural traditions, religious beliefs and a penetrating look into the human heart full of envy, greed and dark thoughts continues to be hailed.
Nigerian author Obinne Udenwe, who won the 2012 African International Achievers Award, paid a tribute to the book and its author, recalling how he read it in secondary school when a friend lent it to him.
“The novel left me with the realization that one could write stories about one’s cultures and traditions so passionately without holding back - in other to educate and to entertain,” Udenwe wrote in his obituary for Amadi.
Africa mourned the loss of its voice of fatherly wisdom, united across political parties and boundaries. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said, “The passing away of Amadi is as much a loss to Nigeria and Africa as it is to the world” and his rival, former President Goodluck Jonathan, echoed him without dissent.
“Elechi Amadi comforted us with his literary works,” Jonathan wrote on his Facebook page. “[He and former Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe] died at perhaps a time when their wise counsel and fatherly disposition was direly needed by their nation.”
Clement Excel, a corporal with the Nigerian Police in Lagos, told Chinafrica he first read Amadi in 1994. It was The Concubine published in the African Writers’ Series. “I admire it because it helped readers understand the historical and cultural background. The Concubine is a recommended text in schools across Africa,” Excel said.
In Nairobi, a blogger with the user name Thundering Hooves recalled being moved by The Concubine as a student. “I remember as a high school student in Nairobi diligently studying The Concubine for my O levels,” the blogger wrote. “I distinctly remember trying to get our local tongues around some of the names in the novel. We also marveled at the similarities in cultural practices described in the book between those of his community and some of ours. Feels just like yesterday.”
Lennox Oketch, Assistant Chief Accountant at Glitz International, a jewelry enterprise in Nairobi, said he celebrated Amadi’s “immense contribution to social, economic and pre- and post-colonial politics of Africa and Africans.”
Coming from the first generation of African writers, such as Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo, Amadi’s literary legacy includes later novels like Sunset in Biafra, The Slave and Estrangement.