Chinweizu is a Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

n critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

. Though he has identified himself and is known simply as Chinweizu, he was born Chinweizu Ibekwe at Eluoma

Eluoma

Eluoma is a town in Amawu, Isuikwuato, Abia State of Nigeria. It is the largest town in Isuikwuato, having more than 10 distinct villages. It also occupies the largest geographical space in the whole of Isuikwuato, and has the most varied vegetation, relief and drainage...

 in Isuikwuato

Isuikwuato

Isuikwuato is a local government area in Abia State in southeastern Nigeria. It has an estimated population of over 50,000 people. Isuikwuato contains many natural resources like Iron ore, Kaolin etc. Oil lines flow throw Isuikwuato and there have been cases of burst pipe which have had severe...

 in the part of Eastern Region that is known today as Abia State

Abia State

Abia State is a state in southeastern Nigeria. The capital is Umuahia, although the major commercial city is Aba, formerly a British colonial government outpost. The state was created in 1991 from part of Imo State and its citizens are predominantly Igbo people...

, and was educated at Government Secondary School, Afikpo

Government Secondary School, Afikpo

Government Secondary School, Afikpo is a boys' high school located in Afikpo, a town in Ebonyi State in the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. This was the part of Nigeria that sought without success to secede as the independent state of Biafra in the late 1960s...

. He later attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 (MIT) for college education. While studying in America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, during the civil rights era, Chinweizu became influenced by the philosophy of a black arts movement. He is commonly associated with Black orientalism

Black orientalism

Black orientalism is an intellectual and cultural movement found primarily within African American circles. While similar to the general movement of Orientalism in its negative outlook upon Western Asian - especially Arab - culture and religion, it differs in both its emphasis upon the role of the...

.

Background

He enrolled for a Ph.D. at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, under the supervision of political scientist Claude E. Welch, Jr.http://www.polsci.buffalo.edu/faculty_staff/welch/ Chinweizu apparently had a disagreement with his dissertation committee and walked away with his manuscript, which he got published as The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers, and the African Elite by Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

 in 1975. He took the book to SUNY, Buffalo, where he demanded, and was promptly awarded, his Ph.D. in 1976, one year after he had published the dissertation. Thus, the publication settled his disagreement with his advisors in his favor.

Chinweizu started teaching overseas, at MIT and San Jose State University

San José State University

San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...

. He had returned to Nigeria by the early 1980s, working over the years as a columnist for various newspapers in the country and also working to promote Black orientalism

Black orientalism

Black orientalism is an intellectual and cultural movement found primarily within African American circles. While similar to the general movement of Orientalism in its negative outlook upon Western Asian - especially Arab - culture and religion, it differs in both its emphasis upon the role of the...

 in Pan-Africanism. In Nigeria, he became a literary critic, attacking what he saw as the elitism of some Nigerian authors, particularly Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...

.