Featured Teacher: Epaphras Osandu

The newest member of the Providence College Department of English is Associate Professor Epaphras Osondu. He was graduated from University of Calabar with a B.A. in Literature Studies and English and from Syracuse University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Prior to teaching at the College, Osondu worked in advertising and as a copy writer. He also taught at the University of Maryland at College Park and Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. as Graduate Assistant.

Osondu was born into a family of seven in the former capital of Nigeria, Lagos. As a child he attended a Catholic boarding school.

"Although the school was not lead by the Dominicans, but the Franciscans, the Catholic tradition was very strong," he said. "The school focused on spirituality, but like a British boarding school, also focused on order and parochial matters."

It was paritially due to this Catholic upbringing that attracted Osondu to teaching at PC.

"I come from a family of teachers," he said "So I valued education, and with my own schooling, the Catholic tradition instantly made me interested in this college."

Osondu also cites the attitudes of the PC student body as a reason for desiring to teach. After doing a sample lesson on a Fiction Workshop class in the spring, he insisted that the curiosity and openness of the students was engaging and fascinating.

"The students here give and take," he said. "They embraced learning from me and each other. They accepted criticism, which can often be the toughest thing for a writer to take, easily. A willingness to listen to criticism and advice from me and from each other was apparent. The time passed so quickly."

After obtaining a steady teaching position at PC, Osondu found that not much had changed. He claims his classes now are equally willing to engage in the classroom and in their texts.

"My students now are like sponges," said Osondu."They soak up information and the classroom dynamic and are perfectly willing to give it back to the class."

The classroom dynamic he speaks of is of the Socratic style, preferring questioning and answering and discussing to simple lectures.

When asked which of his classes he enjoyed teaching the most, he smiled and referred to an African saying.

"Don't ask a man which child he loves the most!" he said. "All of my classes are amazing. The Fiction Workshop, the class to which I gave the sample lesson, is extraordinary."

When speaking of his Fiction Workshop class, he used a sweet metaphor to describe the dynamic of the class.

"Being in that class is like working in a chocolate factory," he said. "The students are all working together successfully, and with that working together comes a positive result. Like in a chocolate factory, if all the workers and machines operate correctly, the result is good."

Osondu hopes to continue writing and publishing while he teaches at PC.

"I hope PC can provide me with the environment to continue writing," he said.

With short stories such as "A Letter From Home" and "Jimmy Carter's Eyes," and poems such as "Waiting for the gods to die," Osondu has received many accolades for his published works. "Jimmy Carter's Eyes" was short-listed for the 2007 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Most of his works were set in his home country of Nigeria, and discussed family and town relations. "Jimmy Carter's Eyes" told of a small child in a village in Africa who was blinded at at young age, yet gained the power to witness kidnappings and tell of instances regarding her father, who abandoned her as a baby. The story centered around the townspeople in the village and how they reached out to help the girl when she was blinded.

"A Letter from Home," was set in the form of a woman in Nigeria writing a letter to her son who has traveled to America, begging him to return home and adapt the Nigerian life she desired for him.

Even with strong Nigerian influences, Osondu admits that the United States gave him a much more conducive environment for publishing works. He spoke of Nigeria as lacking in publishing houses and literary journals.

However, one of the works that Osondu spoke of as one of his most influential and importance pieces was published in his home country. The anthology For Ken, For Nigeria (Poems) was a collection of poems by the late Ken Saro-Wiwa that Osondu pieced together in memoriam of someone who influenced his entering into the literary field.

"Ken Saro-Wiwa was a man hanged with eight others in 1995 for his activism and writings," he said. "When I saw the power literature could have on the world, I began to consider switching from a career in advertising to using literature, my writings to impact people."

Ken Saro-Wiwa was an author, environmentalist, and television producer whose public, written desires for a more Democratic Nigeria were squelched by Dictator Babangida. After being unjustly tried for the murders of four elders in Ogoniland, on the Niger Delta, he was publicly hung with his colleagues. Osondu viewed this injustice as an indication of the power writing books can have on the public.

"I was writing ads for Nigerian Tylenol for years," Osondu said "And no one came to hang me for it! Saro-Wiwa was doing his job, writing, and he was murdered. It got me thinking about why the government, why people are so afraid of literature."

Osondu values literature and teaching for reasons beyond making a public statement.

"I do come from a family of teachers, and in Nigeria, when a family is poor, they will send their child to live with a teacher," he said. "From seeing students as such in my town and in my home, I realized the value in education. Parents can love their children so much and know that education is the right path for them that they will go through the pain of sending them away- just so they can get a proper education."

Upon entering the field of teaching and writing, Osondu considers his career high to be watching the progression in his students.

"In whatever way it is, I enjoy watching students sit in the back of the room and gradually move to the front," he said. "Whether they do it in the form of participation, or sharing their work with the class, it is a pleasure to see my students open themselves up and become involved."