The Next Nigerian Writer Who Should Win The Nobel Prize

Ben Okri

Prof.Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 and no other Nigerian writer has has won it to date.

Chinua Achebe would have won it. But after writing only two great novels Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God he seemed to have been held back by the Law of Diminishing Returns. Because his other novels failed to measure up to the genius that wrote the two great novels he even wrote when he was a young man under 30. But as he grew older his genius seemed to have been overwhelmed by the challenges of modern developments.

Another gifted Nigerian novelist who have lagged behind is Kole Omotosho who is now based in South Africa and now more famous as a TV commercial model than as a novelist. What an irony.

The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk just won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature and I won't say he does not deserve it. But one African I know who deserves to be given the Nobel Prize, is Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.

The new crop of dynamic Nigerian novelists from Ben Okri to Chris Abani have been winning laurels and Ben Okri is the next Nigerian writer who should win the Nobel Prize one fine day. He has already won the higly coveted Booker Prize.