Abiola Irele

Abiola Irele walked into the office of Research in African Literatures with his colleague RAL editor Dick Bjornson in 1989 shortly after his touted arrival at The Ohio State University. His name and scholarly reputation preceded him, of course, and now the elegant fluidity of his French and his impeccable Continental manners were a revelation. As he settled into life at a Big Ten American university, he worked with Dick, as well as with his former student Joe Kubayanda who was now a colleague and serving as associate editor of RAL, to develop special issues and to serve as a general ambassador for the journal to African, Caribbean, and European scholars. It is not overstating the case to say that Abiola Irele transformed the journal into the premier publication for African literary studies.

At The Ohio State University, Professor Irele was Professor of African, French, and Comparative Studies, with joint appointments in the African and African American Studies Department as well as Comparative Studies in the Humanities, while also holding an adjunct appointment in the Department of French and Italian. He was furthermore a research associate at the university's Center for African Studies and convened the annual meeting of the African Literature Association at Ohio State in 1995. He taught upper-level and graduate courses reflecting his interests in critical theory and the Négritude Movement, among others, but he also introduced scores of undergraduate students to works of African literature in general Humanities courses focused on literature and society, literature and the self, and especially the representation of the hero and the experience of war, where Odudwa and Sundiata join the ranks of Odysseus, Aeneas, and Beowulf in the imagination of students whose education had previously lacked exposure to African literature. Professor Irele also established links to the School of Music, the departments of Philosophy, English, Spanish and Portuguese, Near Eastern Languages and Literature, and Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Literatures, as well as Linguistics and History, among others. He was the definition of comparatist, an animateur, or, as many have called him, a Renaissance man.

Some may find it difficult to believe that Professor Irele was initially a reluctant editor of Research in African Literatures. Whether this disquietude came from the untimely loss of his former student Josaphat Kubayanda in 1991, followed soon after by the death of his close friend Dick Bjornson in 1992, both serving RAL at the time of their deaths, or from the knowledge that yet another commitment would put an added burden on his own endeavors, it took some time for the university and departmental administrators to convince him to take the helm of the journal. Yet once he assumed command, he propelled the publication in new directions, and just as his joint appointments at the university made for new circles of interaction, he welcomed contributions from philosophers, political economists, music historians and musicians, artists, thespians, social scientists. … RAL truly was a marketplace of ideas from scholars across disciplines and departments.

My own memories of Professor Irele include editorial gatherings or individual meetings that turned into discussions of Arthurian and West African epics, Catullus and Sappho, Baudelaire and Rimbaud, French cuisine, American ex-pats in Paris, Présence Africaine and Madame Diop, who succeeded her husband Alioune, and observations about being black in the US. It was also during his tenure as editor that RAL's covers were adorned with images of African art—many of them of artifacts from his personal collection, entrusted to me to be delivered to the medical photography unit on campus, since it was the very best. Look back at the glossy covers that enhance the sheen of an iron head sculpture, catch the interplay of lines and curves in a royal stool made of wood, draw the eye to the workings of an African musical instrument, or heighten the intensity of black and white paint on a hand-carved colon. The selections were never random choices, but underscored his purposes behind the journal and within the journal's essays.

I want to emphasize the generosity of spirit I experienced with...