THROWBACK THURSDAY: CHINUA ACHEBE

Chinua Achebe & Nelson Mandela

(L-R) John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo; Chinua Achebe (center) and Wole Soyinka – after meeting with former Nigerian Dictator Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) to plead for the lives of the poet General Mamman Jiya Vatsa and sixteen other officers for staging what has since come to be known as a phantom coup March, 1986

A young Chinua Achebe with two versions of his first novel; Things fall apart.

Born on the 16th of November 1930, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor and critic. Best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart(1958) which is the most widely read book in modern African literature.

Raised by his parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in southeastern Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos.

He gained worldwide attention for Things Fall Apart in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe wrote his novels in English and defended the use of English, a “language of colonisers”, in African literature. In 1975, his lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” featured a famous criticism of Joseph Conrad as “a thoroughgoing racist”; it was later published in The Massachusetts Review amid some controversy.

When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and returned to the U.S. in 1990 after a car accident left him partially disabled.

A titled Igbo chieftan, Achebe’s novels focus on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and the clash of Western and traditional African values during and after the colonial era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He also published a number of short stories, children’s books, and essay collections. From 2009 until his death, he served as a professor at Brown University in the United States.

Fondly called the “grandfather of Nigerian literature”, Achebe died after a short illness on 21 March 2013 in Boston, United States. An unidentified source close to the family said that he was ill for a while and had been hospitalised in the city. Penguin publishing director Simon Winder said: “…we are all desolate to hear of his death.” The New York Times described him in his obituary as “one of Africa’s most widely read novelists and one of the continent’s towering men of letters”. The BBC wrote that he was “revered throughout the world for his depiction of life in Africa”.

Chinua Achebe won several awards over the course of his writing career, including the Man Booker International Prize (2007) and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2010). He also received honorary degrees from more than 30 universities around the world. He was given a state funeral.

Achebe forced American rapper 50 Cent to change the name of his movie, due to a conflict with Achebe’s most famous work ‘Things Fall Apart’. Achebe went on to turn down $1,000,000 offered by 50 Cent for him to use the name. 50 Cent eventually settled for the title ‘All Things Fall Apart’.