Being Obotunde Ijimere and M. Lovori: Mapping Ulli Beier’s intercultural hoaxes from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Ulli Beier was a hugely influential figure in Nigerian and Papua New Guinean literature from the 1950s to the 1970s. He founded and edited numerous literary magazines, including Black Orpheus and Kovave, fostered unappreciated talent, and provided publication opportunities when few were available. The story of his dedication to nascent literary scenes in Africa and the Pacific is, however, marred by appropriation, as Beier wrote fraud into the literature of both countries. Writing under various Nigerian and Niuginian names, Beier conducted a series of literary hoaxes whose racial and cultural deceptions smuggle a white author into Indigenous literary histories, and exemplify the permissibility that even anticolonial white men granted themselves. In this article I explore Beier’s main racial alter egos – Obotunde Ijimere and M. Lovori – with an emphasis on his position as a lecturer and magazine editor at the University of Papua New Guinea.