What has made the concept of Nollywood blossom and explode in the face of the negative scenarios that were previously presented by the outside world is that Nollywood tells African stories through drama. We will pause awhile to reflect on the wonders that have taken place with Nollywood – from telling African stories even through analogue methods, this industry has bludgeoned into a behemoth ranking only next to Hollywood and Bollywood. It is the same for dramatic presentations where plays are staged as direct reflections of life itself. The idea is that when such a fictional character ‘falls’, or experiences a reversal in his or her fortunes, the fictional effect which is often didactic becomes very poignant and more overwhelming. For a hero or heroine to be a hero or heroine he or she is often presented as having risen from grass to grace. Under very strict literary considerations, most of these stories verily get told either through fictional characters who pass through Shakespearean or Victorian prisms: there is usually a tragic hero with a tragic flaw whose tragic flaw eventually leads him to experience a reversal of fortunes as a hero or heroine. Many of the stories that a new generation of Africans is telling are stories about the triumphs of Africans or Nigerians. They deliberately ignore negative issues of poverty, disease, famine and wars and focus on the innovative solutions that Africans are beginning to put in place to solve problems emanating from internecine wars, avoidable famine, intractable diseases and the promotion of new entrepreneurship. Today, and perhaps as a consequence of the quiet revolution which African writers’ exposition initiated, many Africans are beginning to tell their own stories. ![]() Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” In that treatise, Mrs Adichie said: “like our economic and political worlds, stories are defined by…how they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told. During a TED talk on October 9 2009, Nigerian award-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captured the dangers of a negative narrative about Africa and Nigeria with her exposition titled: The Danger of a Single Story. The younger generation is not left behind in the dialogue of inclusion. Of course, students of Literature who are familiar with the dramatic, poetic and prose themes of Nigeria’s Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, and his contributions to contemporary literary dialogue will appreciate the case he has consistently made about the credibility of African cultures and traditional African religions. In this category we have renowned intellectuals like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ayi Kwei Armah, Syl Cheney-Choker, Camara Laye, Ferdinand Oyono, Okot P’Bitek and a host of African writers. ![]() Around the turn of the millennium, several agitations and opinions around the stories told about Africa and Nigeria began to be challenged by Africans seeking cultural retrieval.
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