LITERATURE AS MEDICINE: SYSTEM INTERNATIONAL (SI) UNIT AS STYLE AND STRATEGY IN NIGERIAN PHYSICIAN PROSE FICTION

Abstract

From our sustained investigations on the Nigerian novel, there has
been no serious attempt to discuss the literary quality of the Nigerian
physician prose fiction, especially with respect to the stylistic
fictionalisation of the system international (si) unit. Previous efforts
in journal articles and limited reviews emphasised theme and style of
Achebe, Soyinka, and their contemporaries, for instance, (Onuora
1976, Yerima 2008, Ezeigbo 2008). This constitutes a gap and widens
the paucity of research in our study, thus necessitates the current
study. While not ignoring the thematic preoccupation and the social
relevance of Anthony Marinho’s The Victim (2004) and Nene and
Other stories (2005); our main aim in this paper is to examine the
system international (si) unit as literary style and creative strategy in
the Nigerian physician prose fiction. The major findings of the study
include: the Nigerian novel experiments with fiction in diverse forms
in the examination of unusual themes like gigolo, nymphomaniac,
gender and age assumptions of menopause, sperm movement and
pregnancy hypotheses, ultrasound machine and gender determinism.
We conclude that there is high positive correlation of medicine with
literature. In view of the contributions of physician creative writers to
the expansion of Nigeria’s literary landscape, we advise that the
Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) recommend that our
universities as agencies of development create the Departments of
physician literature for physician literature to thrive in Nigerian
Universities. If indeed our proposal could have a good hearing, it
could relate people and engineer development. It could also be a
source of fund generation for our universities as foreign scholars and
researchers may be interested in the new literary study.