This anthology of essays brings together original critical comments on Nigerian literatures written in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a celebration of Nigeria's contribution to the world's heritage of letters. The twenty-three essays in it explore the fundamental role of the intelligentsia in defining and describing the nation state in space and time. The contributions represent some of the best and most articulate assessments of Nigeria's literary discourses in their pre-colonial and colonial phases. The various ideological reflections in the essays reveal significant details about the intellectual and imaginative processes that have gone into the shaping of Nigeria over the centuries. The diversity of themes examined, the historical epochs covered and the geo-political spread of the contributors add to the uniqueness of the volume. Chinua Achebe, J.P. Clarke, Femi Osofisan and Kole Omotoso are amoung the 23 contributors included.