Mazrui Got It Wrong on Okigbo, Ekwe-Ekwe

The Day Prof. Ali Mazrui Cried

Prof. Mazrui

Kwaheri, Mazrui arap Mombasa.

You reached your destination-

A thousand miles beyond the boundary.

I was a witness.

Now, you’ve set forth

On a trip across the sacred cloud.

Sorry, I couldn’t deliver

"The Trial of Ali Mazrui"

Before the bracket closed.

But you can be sure

It has set sail,

Far beyond the bondage

Of our triple heritage.

As we mourn the passing of a great African intellectual, Prof. Ali Mazrui, I present to you a 2007 dispatch from Christopher Okigbo International Conference at Harvard University.

Before then, I had met and interviewed Professor Mazrui twice. But on that day, I saw an Ali Mazrui that I had never seen before.

For many scholars of African literature, Ali Mazrui was an outsider who crashed into the African literature party on the wings of Christopher Okigbo. His one and only novel, “The Trial of Christopher Okigbo,” made him a factor in literary discourse.

With notoriety comes despise. Mazrui is so despised that more scholars are not on talking terms with him than those who are.