Abstract
Ulli Beier’s edited Biafran resistance poetry anthology titled Resistance: An Anthology of Poetry Dedicated to Christopher Okigbo was withdrawn from publication in the Heinemann African Writers’ Series during the Nigeria-Biafran War 1967-1970. The withdrawal and subsequent abandonment of the collection leaves a crack in the historicity of the war. This paper interrogates the intersections of postcolonial politics and activism in Heinemann’s publishing of Biafran literary resistance, focusing on the publishers’ curious withdrawal of an already commissioned anthology at the proof stage. I argue that the anthology, alongside related publisher-author correspondence can function as a research laboratory for reclaiming the abandoned voices and the publisher’s ambivalent circumstances. Relying on John Thompson’s ‘logic’ of the publishing field’, and deploying the archival method and its application to Kimberle Crenshaw’s notion of literary intersectionality, I examine a selection of these materials as my primary sources not only to bring the vanishing memories to public gaze but also show how they could be reclaimed for national healing. The paper sets new benchmarks for Nigeria-Biafran war scholars in the humanities and contributes to the conversation on censorship and the politics of publishing postcolonial African resistance.
Presenters
Abba AbbaSenior Lecturer, Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Lokoja, Kogi, Nigeria
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Oceanic Journeys: Multicultural Approaches in Publishing Practices
KEYWORDS
NIGERIA-BIAFRAN WAR, BIAFRAN RESISTANCE; HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES, CENSORSHIP, PUBLISHING
