From Past to Present and Future: The Regenerative Spirit of the Abiku (Critical Essay‪)‬

This article investigates the representation of the famous West African abiku phenomenon in three works by three Nigerian writers, namely, J. P. Clark-Bekederemo's poem "Abiku" (1965), Wole Soyinka's poem also entitled "Abiku" (1967) and Ben Okri's novel The Famished Road (1991). The article offers a socio-political reading of the abiku (the myth of a child who dies to be reborn) as handled by the three writers and based on a traditional West African world view. The article investigates how the abiku motif has attracted many writers who are engaged in various agendas of cultural nationalism and identity formation, and how a close reading of their work points to their aesthetic and ideological concerns. **********