TheBookWorm:

Looks like Mandela was silently saying STFU...

Guess how only Yorubas (with the exception of GOOD ones like Soyinka) have a negative thing to say against Achebe in death. Google the internet and see that out of 6 or 7 billion or so people on earth, only some paltry 20 million humans (all Yorubas) have said something bad about him. The remaining 10 million Yorubas either are too uneducated to even know Achebe, or are among the few GOOD ones.

Chinua Achebe and the ‘Bravery of Lions’
By JOHN WILLIAMS

Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer who died on Thursday at 82, spent his life thinking deeply about his home country, Nigeria. After moving to the United States in 1990, he still kept a close eye on Nigeria and offered strong opinions about its leadership and politics.

In 2010, he told the Guardian: “If we took just one of our political or military leaders, put them on trial in Nigeria, showed how much money they had taken and sentenced them to an adequate punishment, from that point corruption would begin to end.”

Some readers believed Mr. Achebe’s views became muddled by nostalgia in later years. Writing about Mr. Achebe’s memoir “There Was a Country” for The New York Times Book Review last year, Adam Nossiter said the book sounded a familiar theme: Mr. Achebe’s “bitterness over what Nigeria became after independence from Britain in 1960.” Mr. Nossiter called the writer’s outlook a “partially rose-tinted view of the colonial past.”

But Mr. Achebe’s work, especially the novel “Things Fall Apart,” a mainstay of high school and college reading lists, has opened many eyes to Africa’s history by telling stories removed from the frame of the colonial perspective.

During a 2008 tribute to Mr. Achebe organized by PEN, the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who like Mr. Achebe grew up in southeastern Nigeria, recalled the books she first read as a child: “Mostly British children’s books,” she said, “in which all the characters were white and ate apples and played in the snow and had dogs called Socks.” When she first started writing her own stories, the people in them had similar characteristics. “I didn’t know that people like me could exist in books,” she said. “I had assumed that books, by their very nature, had to have English people in them. And then I read ‘Things Fall Apart.’ ”

In a 1994 interview in The Paris Review, Mr. Achebe spoke of “the danger of not having your own stories”:

There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/chinua-achebe-and-the-bravery-of-lions/

Chinua Achebe, Famed Nigerian Writer, Dies At 82



The first book of Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was nearly lost to history when a London typing service dismissed the handwritten manuscript—sent from Africa—as a joke.

The joke was on them. Finally published in 1958, “Things Fall Apart” became an improbable success, announcing the Nigerian author, and Africa, on the world’s literary stage. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies in 50 languages.

“It literally invented African literature,” said Simon Gikandi, Kenyan author of “Reading Chinua Achebe.”

Mr. Achebe has died, his publisher confirmed Friday, according to the Associated Press. He was 82 years old.

Born in 1930 in a roadside town in British Nigeria’s rural southeast, Mr. Achebe sought work as a young man in Lagos, the colonial capital, where he wrote his first novel: the tragic story of a champion wrestler reduced to suicide by the arrival of Christian missionaries.

Mr. Achebe wrote his early fiction at a hopeful hour in African history, in the 1950s and 1960s, when waves of independence inspired young writers to celebrate—and perhaps romanticize—the sunnier aspects of life in the so-called dark continent. Many sought to capture the grandeur of Africa’s landscapes, its rivers and gardens.

Mr. Achebe was more wry—and more skeptical of Africa’s winds of change. In the novels he wrote, African society could be both beautiful but brutal, and always in danger of falling apart.

“He started writing at a moment of great expectations, but his works contained this important cautionary note, that things could go wrong,” Mr. Gikandi said.

Soon, they did. Mr. Achebe’s 1966 novel “Man of the People” ends with a military coup. Weeks after its publication, Nigerians awoke to learn their military had seized power for the first of six times. Civilians and soldiers alike accused the novelist of enjoying foreknowledge of the coup.

Within months, Nigeria was engulfed in independent Africa’s first humanitarian catastrophe: a war for the independence of Mr. Achebe’s Igbo homeland that left one million people dead, most of them children who starved.

The novelist delved into this painful period in his last book, “There Was A Country.”

After the conflict ended, in 1970, he drifted from fiction toward criticism and talent-scouting. As editor of a British publishing house Heinemann’s African Writer Series, he edited, published, and promoted early entrants into Africa’s pantheon of writers: Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ghana’s Ayi Kwei Armah, Cameroon’s Mongo Beti.

A brief foray into politics, campaigning for a political party, prompted him to write 1982’s “The Trouble With Nigeria,” a 68-page rant against everything from taxi drivers to corruption that op-ed writers still quote from liberally. His country—Africa’s most populous—looked to him for guidance. At literary seminars in the U.S., Nigerians would pack the seats and exhaust him with questions about their country’s politics—to the dismay of non-Nigerians who had come to discuss literature.

In 1975, he accomplished a feat rare even for authors: He knocked a classic, Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” from the literary canon. The 1903 novel had been Europe’s most commonly read account of Africa, and bristled with depictions of Africans as half-human cannibals. In an influential series of lectures and essays, Mr. Achebe called the author “a thoroughgoing racist.” The charge stuck. Steadily, Mr. Conrad’s share of university reading lists fell as Mr. Achebe’s rose.

In 1990, a car accident in Lagos left Mr. Achebe paralyzed from the waist down, and sent him to Bard College in New York, an easier setting than Nigeria for a wheelchair-constrained author. In 2009, he joined Brown University in Rhode Island. He would live and lecture in the U.S. for the final decades of his life.

By then, “Things Fall Apart” ranked as one of America’s most frequently taught high-school books.

Yet its author played down praise. Twice, he rejected Nigeria’s second-highest honor, accusing the leaders who award the prize of trying “to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.”

When critics credited him with transforming American and European views of Africa, he abstained—he thought they hadn’t changed all that much.

But he believed they could. In a 1994 interview, he summarized the driving thought behind his art: “If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/03/22/chinua-achebe-famed-nigerian-writer-dies-at-82/?mod=google_news_blog

Appreciation: Chinua Achebe influenced writers around the world

Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

The famous Nigerian author leaves behind his novel, 'Things Fall Apart,' which influenced a generation of writers from Africa and from around the world by giving voice to the oppressed.

One of the towering figures of world literature is gone. Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe has died at 82.

Now the father of modern African literature will never receive the Nobel Prize that so readers and critics around the world believed he deserved.

Achebe's writing triggered a revolution in fiction which continues to this day. By presenting the world and history as seen through different eyes, he gave voice to the previously unheard. Achebe inspired writers in both Africa and elsewhere to tell their stories, most notably African-American Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison.

Achebe's most famous novel Things Fall Apart was published in 1958. An exploration of the tragic effect of British colonialism on a traditional African man, it has been published in almost 50 languages.

Among the most famous novels in world literature, it has appeared on countless high school and college reading lists. Admired by critics, it was also popular, spending four weeks on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books List in 2006, where it reached No. 33.

Oprah Winfrey declared it one of the "Five Books Everyone Must Read At Least Once."

Taking its title from a W.B. Yeats poem, it It tells the story of Okonkwo, a "strong man" in an Ibo village in Nigeria. His world is destroyed by the introduction of British colonialism and Christian missionaries.

In an essay, Achebe once wrote that he wanted "to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement."

For many years, Achebe -- who was paralyzed in a car accident in 1990 -- lived in the United States where he taught at Bard College and Brown University.

After Achebe won the 2007 Man Booker International Prize for fiction, Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer noted, "Chinua Achebe's early work made him the father of modern African literature as an integral part of world literature."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/03/22/chinua-achebe-author-of-things-fall-apart-dies-at-82/2009751/

I remember the vanquishing of Amalinze the Cat
I remember the hunt for the source of the ogbanje in Ezinne
I remember i cried when Ikemefuna was killed and Okonkwo the man with a spring in his step had to be exiled

I remember he looked on his mother's family with disdain though they accommodated him
I remember that when a boy washes his hands, he can eat with the elders
I remember the tale of the bed that learnt to fly without landing as men have learned to shoot without missing

I remember the irreversible progress of colonialism and subsequent loss of our traditional values
I remember Okonko's first son dropping his name for Isaac
I remenber Okonkwo leaving in shame for the world he lost

Things fall apart and the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loose on the land


Live forever, great pensman.. You did your part

tpia@:
Achebe's parents were married by G T Basden, the well known author and authority on Igbo people, whose writings are considered among the foremost works chronicling igbo culture and tradition.

G T Basden was the person Mr Brown in Things fall Apart (an easygoing and well liked missionary in the novel) was based on.

Achebe was raised christian by his parents, but his dad's brother remained traditionalist, and he learned about african traditional religious practices from his extended relatives.

That's an interesting one.
In Things fall apart, Mr Brown promised to write a book about Okonkwo, did he do so?

ilugunboy: Can the admin of this forum move this thrash to the literature and the book section.....

what has this got to do with politics section?



This is not a national loss..this is a lost to his tribesmen....

some people are so stupid! Can you see beyond one's tribe for once in your life?
Achebe's death is a loss to the Nigerian nation as a whole! now keep your childish posts to yourself!

ilugunboy: Can the admin of this forum move this thrash to the literature and the book section.....

what has this got to do with politics section?



This is not a national loss..this is a lost to his tribesmen....

The death of Achebe has shock entire world. The whole world is in mourning mood. CNN, BBC, ALJA are all showing it right now, even though you don't have paid TV go to your neighbor's house and watch it.

Achebe remains the Africa's best. Yeroba 1000 best cannot equal a single Achebe. That is a fact

bestview:

The death of Achebe has shock entire world. The whole world is in mourning mood. CNN, BBC, ALJA are all showing it right now, even though you don't have paid TV go to your neighbor's house and watch it.

Achebe remains the Africa's best. Yeroba 1000 best cannot equal a single Achebe. That is a fact

.

Who the fvck is this shtytee here? Never in your miserable entire life do you quote me on this forum if we've never related here before ! Clear?

ekwah:


some people are so stupid! Can you see beyond one's tribe for once in your life?
Achebe's death is a loss to the Nigerian nation as a whole! now keep your childish posts to yourself!

Hurt as much as you wanna hurt...Asebe's death is just another statistical numbered death.

In the next couple of days, you lot would not even remember or think about it again ! FACT! So why spamming the NL community with all those cries talk?

If you lot are so pained...you know what to do!

Which loss to the Nigerian nation? Tell me! Someone that conspired against the same Nigeria and kept ridiculing the nation at any given opportunity? Forget that joor ...it a loss at best to the Ibo nation.

Once again ...Seun and Mukina...can you move all these Asebe threads to the section they really belonged ? The Literature and fictious book section!

alaoeri: Pls save my ignorance who's Achebe & wetin he do for Nigeria?

*smh*

Andre Uweh:
That's an interesting one.
In Things fall apart, Mr Brown promised to write a book about Okonkwo, did he do so?

If you're referring to G T Basden, then yes he did.

tpia@:




If you're referring to G T Basden, then yes he did.

Please kindly give the title of the book on Okonkwo by G T Basden. Thank you.

ckkris:

Please kindly give the title of the book on Okonkwo by G T Basden. Thank you.

Help please.

dayokanu: He renewed tribalism in Nigeria from his most recent book there was a country

Figment of our imagination! Why don't you write your own book as a rebuttal?

ckkris:

Please kindly give the title of the book on Okonkwo by G T Basden. Thank you.

Andre Uweh:
Help please.

these things are literature analogies, not everyone can understand them, hence I dont always like to explain because not everyone will get it, and here on nl what happens in such instances is those who dont get it become foul mouthed and start raining insults and derailing threads due to the fact that they dont grasp the subject matter.

If Mr Brown of Things Fall Apart is G T Basden, then his work on Igbo culture, tradition and people is what was being referred to.


In addition, quick correction, Achebe's great uncle [his father's uncle], was the person who retained the traditional religion while his dad did not. Also, his dad was an orphan and was raised by this same uncle.

I AM PROUD AND ALWAYS PROUD OF BEEN AN ANAMBRA MAN AND IBO, THEY SAY WE DO NOT GO TO SCHOOL BUT WE GAVE THEM CHIKE OBI, CHINUA ACHEBE, EMEAGWALI,AKUNYILIS ETC..... THESE ARE NOTABLE INTELLEECTUALS IN THE WORLD AND CHINUA ACHEBE PUT US IN MAP AND HE IS THE GIFT OF IGBOS TO THE WORLD.... I LOVE BEEN IGBO AND CANT STOP BEEN IGBO AND I ALSO DO HOPE THAT THE NIGERIAN PREJUDIST RECOGNISE IGBOS

CHINUA ACHEBE IS EVERYWHERE HE CAN BE COMPARED TO NESON MANDELA... MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE, I READ HIS BOOK AND DID CRITIQUE OF HIS BOOK AND HAVE AN ADAPTAPTION OF HIS BOOK IN UNIVERSITY DAYS AS A CREATIVE AND THEATRE ARTIS WITH MAJORS MEDIA AND PUBLICITY

I DUFF MY CAP FOR HIM

tpia@:






these things are literature analogies, not everyone can understand them, hence I dont always like to explain because not everyone will get it, and here on nl what happens in such instances is those who dont get it become foul mouthed and start raining insults and derailing threads due to the fact that they dont grasp the subject matter.

If Mr Brown of Things Fall Apart is G T Basden, then his work on Igbo culture, tradition and people is what was being referred to.


In addition, quick correction, Achebe's great uncle [his father's uncle], was the person who retained the traditional religion while his dad did not. Also, his dad was an orphan and was raised by this same uncle.

Cool. Your posts since the exit of the great Iroko are the best I have come across in nairaland since one year now. Keep it up.

^thanks.

i cant be mentioned in the same sentence as Achebe though.

His level no dey like that, you can edit your post.

ckkris:

Please Sir,
Was TRIBALISM ever dead in Nigeria since Awolowo introduced it in the 1950's, when Awolowo prevented Azikiwe from becoming Premier of Western Nigeria, after a free and fair election that returned a majority of NCNC, over Awo's minority AG?
Since 1965, when Awolowo's Action Group insisted that a Yoruba must be the Vice-Chancellor of UNILAG, instead of Prof Eni Njoku who was next in line of succession to the retiring European VC , have subsequent VC's not always been chosen on TRIBAL considerations?
Now its indigene vs non-indigene; indigenes vs settlers.
Awo's Legacy Rules!

TRIBALISM CONTINUA !

OMO bros na truth you talk so