JONALA
The Fourth

Dated Fall 1967, copyright 1968, and stamped at the foot of the editorial-policy page PUBLISHED JUNE 1968 — the issue ran roughly eight months late, which the covers of the next few numbers make a habit of confessing. The editorial is The Writer in Politics — Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka and the Nigerian Crisis, written as the war was under way and Okigbo already dead. Paulette Trout, who joins the masthead as assistant editor for literature in French, writes on recent developments in French African literature and profiles Jean Ikelle-Matiba, whose twelve poems appear here; Gene Ulansky and Robert McDowell contribute essays, Obiageli Peters a poem For Biafra, P. W. Songa a story, and Cosmo Pieterse the play Ballad of the Cells. Okpaku writes on Les Ballets Africains, Guinea’s national ensemble, whose San Francisco performances supply the cover photographs, and Paul Páricsy contributes a supplement to Janheinz Jahn’s bibliography of neo-African literature. A box on the contents page announces the first books of what would become The Third Press.