Onitsha Market Literature: An Accepted Literary Subgenre or Fossilized Specie? A Formalist Approach to Ogali Ogali’s Veronica My Daughter

Abstract

For years now literary exponents have faced the challenges and problems of establishing the true facts of genre studies and its various dimensions in literary theory and practice. This problem was in time past discussed from various perspectives in different places and periods. The case of Onitsha Market Literature and its attendant problems have often challenged critics over the years. As a subgenre of literature from a peculiar geographical location in West Africa, the usual question is if this literature qualifies as an acceptable and universally standard literature. Can a market based literature make a good and complete literature? What is the actual book length required to make a literary work complete? Is there any official language that qualifies a literary work as a standard or completely accepted literature? These are some of the questions that this paper answered. The study examined this specie of Onitsha Market literary subgenre and made a number of discoveries and a conclusion, pointing to the fact that Onitsha Market Literature is a literature of circumstance and situation.