The key word to his art as a creative writer is
versatility. Born in Minna, Nigeria, on 26 September 1921, Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi, an Igbo, is the son of Ogbuefi David Duaka Ekwensi and Agnes Uso Ekwensi. He has published novels and short stories, and he has written plays for radio and scripts for television and the screen. His works focus on love, infatuation, infidelity, war, adventure, fantasy, politics, childhood, marriage, death, and ritual sacrifice. He has also collected folktales and written about life in various Nigerian ethnic groups: Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Ijaw, Efik, and Urhobo. Ekwensi has traversed rural and urban landscapes of Nigeria, recording them in his fiction. From his first marriage (1952) to Eunice Anyiwo, with whom he had five children, to his present wife, Maria, who he married towards the end of the Nigerian Civil War (1969), Ekwensi has been married several times and now has many children, several of whom are living in the United States.
Perhaps if he had stuck to one genre, focused on one major theme, or concentrated on one segment of Nigerian society, Ekwensi could have commanded a greater following among literary critics.
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