ABSTRACT
Igbo belongs to the Benue-Kwa group of the large Niger-Congo phylum. It is spoken by at least 18 million people, in a variety of dialects spread over southern Nigeria, from Onitsha and Owerri to Calabar. ‘Central Igbo’ is a compromise standard based on the Onitsha-Owerri dialect. It is one of the four national languages of Nigeria, along with Hausa, Yoruba and English. Creative writing in Igbo, as distinct from Bible translation, dates from 1932 when Pita Nwana’s story Omenuko won a prize in a competition run by the International African Institute. From the 1970s on there has been a steady growth in the output of Igbo novels, plays and verse. Igbo writers have also been prolific in English – a very notable example is Chinua Achebe.
