Blood on the Tides

<I>The Ozidi Saga</I> is one of Africa's best known prosimetric epics set in the Delta region of Nigeria. <I>Blood on the Tides</I> examines the epic -- a tale of a warrior and his sorcerer grandmother's revenge upon the assassins who killed her son -- both as an example of oral literature and as a reflection of the specific social and political concerns of the Nigerian Delta and the country as a whole. Okpewho examines various iterations of the saga including a performance of the entire saga in 1963 in Ibadan by the folk artist Okabou Okobolo. This performance was subsequently transcribed translated and edited by the renowned Nigerian poet playwright and scholar John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo.<BR><BR>Isidore Okpewho is Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies English and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is the author of <I>The Epic in Africa</I> <I>Myth in Africa</I> <I>African Oral Literature</I> and <I>Once Upon a Kingdom</I>. An award-winning novelist he has published four titles: <I>The Victims</I> <I>The Last Duty</I> <I>Tides</I> and <I>Call Me By My Rightful Name</I>.