Pio Zirimu (died 1977) was a Ugandan linguist, scholar and literary theorist. He is credited with coining the word "orature" as an alternative to the self-contradictory term, "oral literature""Notes towards a Performance Theory of Orature", ohio.edu, 3 September 2007. Retrieved 31 May 2014. used to refer to the non-written expressive African traditions. Zirimu was also central in reforming the literature syllabus at Makerere University to focus on African literature and culture instead of the English canon.Simon Gikwandi, Evan Mwangi (2013). The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945, p. 177. Oxford University Press. .
Early life and education Zirumu was born in Buganda. He attended high school at King's College Budo, and subsequently went to Makerere University college, and the University of Leeds, where he was a contemporary of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. While at Makerere, Zirimu met Ugandan poet and dramatist Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu. They were to marry a few years later. The marriage produced a daughter.
Teaching Zirimu later taught at the Institute of Languages Studies at Makerere University, where he was involved in the formulation of standards for judging emergent African literature in the 1960s. He was at the African Writers Conference held at Makerere on 1 June 1962 — officially called a "Conference of African Writers of English Expression", which was the first major international gathering of writers and critics of African literature on the African continent.Frederick Philander, , New Era, 18 April 2008.Announcement of conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the June 1962, Humanities & Social Sciences Online. It was also attended by many prominent African writers, including Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Bloke Modisane, Lewis Nkosi, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (then known as James Ngugi), Ezekiel Mphahlele, Robert Serumaga, Rajat Neogy (founder of Transition Magazine), Okot p'Bitek and David Rubadiri."The First Makerere African Writers Conference 1962" , Makerere University.John Roger Kurtz, Urban Obsessions, Urban Fears: The Postcolonial Kenyan Novel, Africa World Press, 1998, pp. 15–16.
Published works
"An approach to Black Aesthetics", in "Oracy as a tool of development", in with Austin Bukenya
References
External links
"Definitions and understandings of oral literature" "Uganda Poetry Anthology 2000. (Uganda)."