The 6 Most Important Powerful Books I Have Read
I cannot count the numbers of the books I have read since I started reading books of both nonfiction and fiction. I have read all of William Shakespeare in one big collection, most of Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Elechi Amadi, Isdore Okpewho, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ben Okri and other Nigerian authors. I have read many books by English authors in my teens and twenties in the 1980s when we had a vibrant reading culture in Nigeria. Reading was a competition among Nigerian youths with the popular African Writers Series of Heinemann, Drumbeat Series of Longman and Pacesetters Series of Macmillan, including several books by Evans and University Press. I also read books by several African authors, including Camara Laye, Steve Biko and others. Reading western novels of Harold Robbins, James Hardley Chase, Nick Carter, Barbara Cartland and others was a popular addiction for us. And presents of new books were among the best gifts we exchanged. I was known for giving books to girlfriends. Reading books also made many of us to start writing our own books, inspired by our famous award winning writers: Amos Tutuola; Prof. Wole Soyinka, the first black Nobel laureate in Literature; Chinua Achebe; Cyprian Ekwensi; J.P. Clark; Christopher Okigbo; Gabriel Okara; John Munonye; Mabel Segun, Flora Nwakpa, Buchi Emecheta, Nkem Nwankwo, Onuora Nzekwu, T M. Aluko, Elechi Amadi, Kólé Omotosho, Eddie Iroh, Isdore Okpewho, Festus Iyayi and others. Among the new generation of outstanding Nigerian writers, Ben Okri, the youngest winner of the highly coveted Booker Prize, published his first novel, "Flowers and Shadows" at 19 in 1980 and won the Booker Prize at the age of 32 in 1991.
