Louisa Egbunike 'In The Shadows of Biafra' as a Podcast

In her essay, Egbunike considers images of war and ghosts of the past.

News reports of the Biafran war (1967-1970), with their depictions of starving children, created images of Africa, which have become imprinted. Biafra endured a campaign of heavy shelling, creating a constant stream of refugees out of fallen areas as territory was lost to Nigeria. Within Igbo culture specific rites and rituals need to be performed when a person dies. To die and be buried ‘abroad’, away from one’s ancestral home or to not be buried properly, impedes the transition to the realm of the ancestors. Louisa Egbunike explores the legacy of the Biafran war and considers the image of those spirits unable to journey to the next realm, and left to roam the earth.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio programmes.

The essay was broadcast on 22nd April 2017, and is now available on BBC iPlayer as a podcast at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04xkwn9