The Nigeria Review is a journal growing to become a standard journal of repute for academic research. This third edition received many contributions: ten reviews of novels (prose fiction), six reviews of drama, one review of biography, three reviews of poetry, one review of children’s fiction, one review of a book on film criticism and two critical research essays. There were 25 submissions, out of which 22 works were selected as suitable for this edition. It was painstaking; more so, as most of the contributors were not academics but writers with serious push to make critical impacts through the assessment of literary and non-literary texts with the application of proper discourse modes.
It is important to state that majority of the critical reviews and essays selected in this edition are criticisms of contemporary texts; works of modern-day Nigerian and African writers. The “new writings” by the “new writers” are also given relevance by the reviewers who found them worthy of critical discourse. We have a novel written by a Nigerian, Oyinkan Braithwaite, entitled My Sister, the Serial Killer which was reviewed by two persons: Nekha Fathima Sulficar (an Indian scholar) and Zainab Muhammad Anka (a Nigerian scholar). We also have two different reviews of A’Aisha Abdulkareem’s Yar’fari, one by Dr. Omolola A. Ladele and the other by Uchenna Emelife. We observe the treatment of the texts by the different reviewers from different climatic and critical enterprises as opportunities of vantage opinions to enable the researchers understand the texts from dual-dimensions of approach.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o declares in Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics (1973) that “A writer is a sensitive needle who records with varying degrees of accuracy and success the conflicts and tensions in his changing society.” The pertinent question now is: How do we understand this primary duty of a writer if we fail in our duty to subject the works they write to thorough reviews or critical analysis? For didactic purpose, a book review is an analysis of a book that includes its subject, strengths and weaknesses and context and a successful book review must include a short summary of the book, background information about the author and his themes, and an evaluation of the content. The reviewer’s evaluation of the book is sacrosanct at the end of the exercise.
This journal is a very important intellectual tool, instrumental in the advancement of scholarship and its impact, and important for the careers of academics. It is predicated on the premise that scholars who review and/or analyse text will definitely not give the authors a free-ride. There are significant reputational, social, and intellectual benefits to reviewing. These include developing a professional reputation for diligence and quality of work. The intellectual base of critical reviews helps in providing the fertile grounds for intellectual growth in research and writing.
For those whose reviews and critical researches made this edition; it is worth the while because the sieving was thorough. Book reviews and researches require myriad of approaches even as each research remains the critical ideas of the contributors; but, certainly, they may be quashed by some other scholars through a different paradigm of perception. This journal has set the pace for further inquiries.
Prof. Anthony C. Oha
Guest Editor, TNR, Vol. 3, 5th September, 2020
Bio:
Guest Editor: Anthony Oha is a Professor of Literature Onomastics. He has published extensively in many journals in Nigeria, India, South Africa, Canada, Australia and the United States of America such as World News, Okike, Onomastica Canadiana, Kiabra, SAJAL, Semiotica, Style, Names, etc. He is in the editorial board of many journals worldwide. He has written two collections of poetry, two novels, two children’s fiction and a travelogue. He is a Senior Research Fellow in Catherine Acholonu Research Center Nigeria, Noida International University, Utter Pradesh India and Indira Gandhi Research Center for the Arts in New Delhi, India. He is the President and founder of Nigeria Onomastic Society.