Chinua Achebe, one of Nigeria’s most influential and successful writers, passed away on March 21st, 2013. His first novel Things Fall Apart was published in the UK in 1958 and “not a word of it was touched before going to release”. It was positively received in the Western world and marked the beginning of Achebe’s career as “the grandfather of Nigerian literature”.
Born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in 1930s Nigeria, Achebe grew up with strong yet opposing influences from traditional Nigerian culture and Christianity. Storytelling was integral to Igbo culture and something Achebe was enriched in throughout his childhood. He attended the prestigious Government College where strict academic disciplines meant that all communication was to be in English, an ordeal Achebe recalled as being told to “put away their different mother tongues and communicate in the language of their colonisers”. Despite this, Achebe flourished and completed secondary school in four years instead of the standard five. During his time at Government College, Achebe read many Western adventure/voyage stories including Treasure Island and Gulliver’s Travels. He later recalled that he took sides with the white characters because “the white man was good and reasonable and intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed against him were sinister and stupid or, at the most, cunning. I hated their guts.”
In 1948, Achebe obtained a bursary to study medicine at Nigeria’s first university, although he changed to English, History and Theology after a year. Achebe’s debut as an author came in the form of Polar Undergraduate, which was published in the university’s University Herald, as a humorous piece praising the intellectual strength of his classmates. This was followed by several short stories such as “In a Village Church”, which fuses Nigerian rural life with Christianity and its institutions. During his studies, Achebe grew ever more disillusioned with European literature about Africa. He found his dislike for African protagonists stemmed from the European author’s cultural ignorance.
In 1956, Queen Elizabeth II visited Nigeria which, for Achebe, brought to the surface the politics of colonialism and its problems, contributing to his ever growing opinion of European visions of Africa. Heinemann published 2,000 copies of Things Fall Apart in June 1958. Although received well by the British public, initial reception in Nigeria was mixed. Whilst some saw the book as “a vivid picture of Ibo life”, others met it with scepticism. In the novel, Achebe returns to his own childhood, exploring the conflicts between Igbo culture and Christianity, through missionaries’ arrival in the village of Umuofia. Despite criticism, Things Fall Apart has been translated into 50 languages, making Achebe the most translated African writer of all time.
His second novel, No Longer at Ease, follows the story of Obi, the grandson of Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart. The story follows Obi’s struggle to adhere to the expectations of his family, his clan and society at large. Following its publication, Achebe was granted a Rockefeller Fellowship for a six month tour of East Africa where he was shocked at the intense levels of segregation. For example, upon completing an immigration form in Kenya, he had to claim his ethnicity as “Other” as the only other available options were European, Arab or Asiatic.
A meeting with Wole Soyinka and Langston Hughes, among others, sparked a hope in Achebe that a community was forming between the African voices. He was later chosen to be General Editor of African Writers’ Series, one of the most powerful forces in bringing post-colonial African literature to the rest of the world. This sparked an influx of publications about African literature, especially from Europe. Achebe responded with his 1962 essay Where Angels Fear to Tread in which he picked apart those who critiqued African writers from outside the African experience, saying “no man can understand another whose language he does not speak (and ‘language’ here does not mean simply words, but a man’s entire world view)”.
In 1972, Achebe relocated to the US and was once again shocked by American and Western attitudes to Africa. He taught at the University of Massachusetts where, in 1975, he gave a controversial lecture titled An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. He detailed Conrad’s dehumanisation of Africa which sparked a series of arguments between critics, some in utter disbelief at Achebe’s theory, others enlightened by the new filter he had granted.
Achebe’s life is really too incredible to condense into an internet article. Following a car accident and subsequent paralysis, he took up the position of Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, New York; he frequently published novels until his death. He won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007, a feat almost unimaginable to a Nigerian born in the 1930s. Achebe revolutionised the way the rest of the world viewed Africa and how Africa views itself, whilst single-handedly causing a canonical work of literature, The Heart of Darkness, to be entirely reconsidered. Achebe indeed was “the man who gave Africa voice”.
R.I.P! He was an African LEGEND!