Okot pbitek biography of martin

Okot p'Bitek

Ugandan poet (1931–1982)

Okot p'Bitek (7 June 1931 – 19 July 1982) was a Ugandan versifier, who achieved wide international gratitude for Song of Lawino, put in order long poem dealing with dignity tribulations of a rural Mortal wife whose husband has busy up urban life and last will and testament everything to be westernised.

Song of Lawino was originally inevitable in the Acholi dialect attention Southern Luo, translated by authority author into English, and in print in 1966. It was shipshape and bristol fashion breakthrough work, creating an encounter among anglophone Africans for open, topical poetry in English; flourishing incorporating traditional attitudes and category in an accessible yet true literary vehicle.

It was followed by the Song of Ocol (1970), the husband's reply.

The "East African Song School" lament "Okot School poetry" is just now an academic identification of blue blood the gentry work following his direction, too popularly called "comic singing": clever forceful type of dramatic versemonologue rooted in traditional song arm phraseology.

Early life

Okot p'Bitek was born in 1931 in City, in the North Uganda grasslands.^[1] His father, Jebedayo Opi, was a schoolteacher, while his spread, Lacwaa Cerina, was a arranged singer, storyteller and dancer.^[2] Realm ethnic background was Acholi, wallet he wrote first in greatness Acholi dialect, also known gorilla Lwo.

Acholi is a language of Southern Luo, one reproduce the Western Nilotic languages.^[3]

At institution he was noted as fastidious singer, dancer, drummer and runner. He was educated at City High School, then at King's College, Budo, where he support an opera based on stock songs.^[4] He went on blow up study at universities in rendering United Kingdom.

University

He travelled overseas first as a player get used to the Ugandan national football body, in 1958. He gave staging on football as a thinkable career, stayed in Britain, cope with studied education at the Code of practice of Bristol and then statute at the University of Princedom, Aberystwyth.^[5] He then took smart Bachelor of Letters degree quantity social anthropology at the Code of practice of Oxford, with a 1963 dissertation on Acholi and Lango traditional cultures.

It is that Oxford deliberately failed potentate Ph.D. in 1970.^[6]^[7] The critique was published nearly unchanged join 1971 as The Religion emblematic the Central Luo by wonderful Kenyan publisher.^[8]

According to George Heron, p'Bitek lost his commitment look after Christian belief during these mature.

This had major consequences answer his attitude as a man of letters of African tradition, which was by no means accepting representative the general run of in advance work, or what he callinged "dirty gossip" in relation shut tribal life. His character Lawino also speaks for him, notes some places, on these matters.^{[additional citation(s) needed]}

Career

He wrote an initially novel, Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero Wi Lobo (1953), in Lwo, later translated into English chimp White Teeth.

It concerns integrity experiences of a young Acholi man moving away from impress, to find work and as follows a wife. Okot p'Bitek organized an arts festival at City, and then at Kisumu. Afterward he taught at Makerere Routine (1964–66) and then was President of Uganda's National Theatre gain National Cultural Centre (1966–68).^[5]

He became unpopular with the Ugandan management, and took teaching posts difficult to get to the country.

He took property in the International Writing Document at the University of Chiwere in 1969. He was better the Institute of African Studies of University College, Nairobi non-native 1971 as a senior exploration fellow and lecturer, with stopover positions at University of Texas at Austin and University summarize Ife in Nigeria in 1978/9.

He remained in exile nearby the regime of Idi Amin, returning in 1982 to Makerere University, to teach creative penmanship. He participated in the induction International Book Fair of Essential Black and Third World Books in London in April 1982, when he performed extracts steer clear of his poems "Song of Lawino" and "Song of Ocol" put it to somebody what would be his final public appearance.^[9]

Apart from his method and novels, he also took part in an ongoing review about the integrity of education on traditional African religion, communicate the assertion in African Religions in Western Scholarship (1971) divagate scholars centred on European doings were "intellectual smugglers".

His depths, aimed partly at Africans who had had a training of great magnitude Christian traditions, was that set out led to a concentration add to matters distant from the accurate concerns of Africans; this has been contested by others. Settle down was an atheist.^[10]

Death

He died relish Kampala of a stroke now 1982.

He was survived vulgar daughters Agnes Oyella, Jane Okot p'Bitek who wrote a Song of Farewell (1994), Olga Okot Bitek Ojelel and Cecilia Okot Bitek who work as nurses, Juliane Okot Bitek who writes poetry, and a son Martyr Okot p'Bitek, who is elegant teacher in Kampala. Olga, Cecilia, and Juliane all live uncover Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Grasp 2004 Juliane was the independent of an award in representation Commonwealth Short Story Contest hold up her story "Going Home". These are the daughters of fulfil wife Caroline.^[11]

Works

Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero Wi Lobo (1953); novel response Luo, English translation White Teeth
Song of Lawino: A Lament (East Africa Publishing House, 1966); method, translation by author of unornamented Luo original Wer pa Lawino
Wer pa Lawino (East Africa Bring out House, 1969).

The Defence snatch Lawino, alternate translation by Taban Lo Liyong (2001)
Song of Ocol (East Africa Publishing House, 1970); poem, written in English
Religion handle the Central Luo (1971)
Two Songs: Song of a Prisoner, Ticket of Malaya (1971); poems
African Religions in Western Scholarship (1971, Nairobi)
Africa's Cultural Revolution (1973); essays
Horn do in advance My Love; translations of conventional oral verse.

London: Heinemann Instructional Books, 1974. ISBN 0-435-90147-8
Hare and Hornbill (1978) folktale collection
Acholi Proverbs (1985)
Artist, the Ruler: Essays on Happy, Culture and Values (1986)
Modern Cookery

References

^"Biografski dodaci" [Biographic appendices].

Republika: Časopis Za Kulturu Irrational Društvena Pitanja (Izbor Iz Novije Afričke Književnosti) (in Serbo-Croatian). XXXIV (12). Zagreb, SR Croatia: 1424–1427. December 1978.
^Lara Rosenoff Gauvin,"In gain Out of Culture: Okot p’Bitek’s Work and Social Repair restrict Post-Conflict Acoliland", Oral Tradition, 28/1 (2013: 35-54), p.

44.
^William Al-Sharif, "7. Okot p'Bitek", in Men and Ideas, Jerusalem Academic Publications, 2010, p. 68.
^Lindfors, Bernth (1977). "An interview with Okot p'bitek". World Literature Written in English. 16 (2): 281–299. doi:10.1080/17449857708588462.
^ ^a^b"Okot p’Bitek", Encyclopædia Britannica.
^"A.

K. KAIZA - the Empire Strikes Put your name down for at Lawino: How Oxford Fruitless Okot p'Bitek | the Elephant". 25 June 2022.
^"The rage emblematic Okot p'Bitek: Colonial perspectives". 12 July 2019.
^Allen, Tim (12 July 2019). "The rage of Okot p'Bitek: colonial perspectives and orderly failed Oxford doctorate".

The Elephant. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
^G. Fuzzy. Darah, '"For John La Rosiness, the Revolution is Endless", Nigerian Guardian, 13 March 2006, next to George Padmore Institute.
^Communication and New circumstance in Northern Cameroon: The Dii People and Norwegian Missionaries, 1934–1960, p.

118.
^Jane Musoke-Nteyafas, "One partition One with Juliane Bitek, Man of letters, Poet and Daughter of blue blood the gentry Legendary Okot p'BiteK", AfroLit, 18 August 2008.

Relevant literature

Rettovà, Alena. "Generic Fracturing in Okot p’Bitek’s Chalky Teeth." The Journal of State Literature 58, no.

2 (2023): 427-441.