Chinua Achebe wrote AFRICA's most successful NOVEL. Personally, I think Chinua Achebe has achieved more than Wole Soyinka and I ran into this article which confirmed it. Do you have a different opinion?

by John Campbell:

Today, November 16, is acclaimed Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s eighty-first birthday. A few days ago, he declined again to accept Nigeria’s second highest national honor, Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR). In 2004, he did not accept it from then-president Olusegun Obasanjo, essentially in protest over Nigeria’s governance with special reference to his home state of Anambra. At the time, he wrote, “Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is…too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honor awarded me in the 2004 honors list.”

This time, he wrote, “The reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made have not been addressed let alone solved. It is inappropriate to offer it again to me. I must therefore regretfully decline the offer again.”

The Jonathan administration’s response has been that Achebe is out of touch with Nigerian realities, and Reuben Abati, the presidential press spokesman, made specific reference to “widely acclaimed electoral reforms” to refute Achebe.

In my view, Achebe’s massive integrity and his icon status call to mind Nelson Mandela. They are probably the most widely known Africans in the United States. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and A Man of the People routinely populate high school and college reading lists. The American poet Maya Angelou has said of Achebe’s work that “all readers meet their brothers, sisters, parents and friends and themselves along Nigerian roads.”

And he will not be silenced.

http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2011/11/16/chinua-achebe-refuses-national-honor/

As much as we know that Soyinka is good in what is knows best, but above Achebe remains the only positive symbol of black race, he has consistently been celebrated all over the world with his book -Things Fall Apart, having been translated in over 150 languages. His books are standard curricular all around the world, It is a single feat that have not been achieved even among British and American authors not to talk of Africa where he is the foremost and most influential icon- The Forbes. The only African living that can closely be equated to Achebe is only Mandela.

Things Fall Apart has to be the most boring book, tbh.
Achebe is a respectable man, but he's over celebrated.

They both have the same Global coverage, why do people bring up threads like these, Achebe is a Genius at what he does, Soyinka is a Genius at what he does, no one is more popular than the other.
@Ileke

Things fall apart is not boring, it might be because you were born and bred in the US, that book still remains one of the best books in African history.

chino11:

As much as we know that Soyinka is good in what is knows best, but above Achebe remains the only positive symbol of black race, he has consistently been celebrated all over the world with his book -Things Fall Apart, having been translated in over 150 languages. His books are standard curricular all around the world, It is a single feat that have not been achieved even among British and American authors not to talk of Africa where he is the foremost and most influential icon- The Forbes. The only African living that can closely be equated to Achebe is only Mandela.

You forgot that nobel laureate doesnt come easy ?

hercules07:

They both have the same Global coverage, why do people bring up threads like these, Achebe is a Genius at what he does, Soyinka is a Genius at what he does, no one is more popular than the other.
@Ileke

Things fall apart is not boring, it might be because you were born and bred in the US, that book still remains one of the best books in African history.

Find another explanation. I was not born and bred in the US.

@Ileke

Always assumed you were, anyway there must be a reason for you to think the book is boring, maybe you read it at a time you were not ready for such a book or maybe you are more into mills and boons than literary work .

hercules07:

@Ileke

Always assumed you were, anyway there must be a reason for you to think the book is boring, maybe you read it at a time you were not ready for such a book or maybe you are more into mills and boons than literary work .

Do not easily assume that I'm the only one who feels that the book was boring. So I'm guessing you'd have to make the same assumption for everyone?
Not a book I'd pick up, somebody wanted to be nice to me by giving me such a boring book.

Well, different strokes for different folks.

Even  thinking about it now, Wole Soyinka's poems were boring.
Gosh, looking back at what I had to suffer in this American education system.

hercules07:

Well, different strokes for different folks.

Now this is a better explanation. Was that so hard?

You are my inlaw, so, I can make some allowance for you, poems I agree can be boring, I have only read wole soyinka's books and everyday I wake up, I thank him for the trials of brother jero and jero's metamorphosis.

hercules07:

You are my inlaw, so, I can make some allowance for you,

We thank God, we thank God. Or else, a vase would have been smashed on by head by now. 

hercules07:

I have only read wole soyinka's books and everyday I wake up, I thank him for the trials of brother jero and jero's metamorphosis.

I read the one about the black dude with back azz and a telephone (?)
So glad I'm out of that phase, no more "required" reading of boring azz Shakespare-wanna-be African writings. 

@ Ileke @hercules Let me remind u dt this is nt a CHAT ROOM if u want to chat u knw where to do that,

@xtian

Why are you not in church, man with bad mind.

Ethnic bigotry no dey tire una? @op, u must be madt to ve started dis rubbish thread. Nonsense

The only African living that can closely be equated to Achebe is only Mandela.

RUBBISH!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can you compare a freedom fighter to a Novelist?

I would rather have Ken Saro Wiwa, yes very good book "Think fall apart" but compared to the other books I read in Secondary School, It wont be in my top 5. Am not trying to pour cold water on his achievement, but he is not on the same level as Mandela, not even close, they millions who died fighting for freedom in Africa. Those are the ones we remember.

What next? JK Rowling is closely equated Ghandi

Another college assignment?

@OP, beyond sowing the seeds of discord, what other purpose did you have in mind when you opened this thread? Be honest!

It was a wise called Frantz Fanon who wrote: "each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it"

What is your particular mission?

this is petrol for tribalist's fire,
before the end of today this thread will turn to a yoruba versus ibo slanging match

okstol:

Ethnic bigotry no dey tire una? @op, u must be madt to ve started dis rubbish thread. Nonsense

Everybody knows how insecure the ibos are,so they make empty rivalry jargons just to be relevant everytime.

Achebe and Soyinka are both celebrated icons, but above all Achebe has been more celebrated and revered more than any other African all because of his literary works which towered above all African literary giant not even Soyinka. I implore the Yorubas brothers to admit this simple fact.

Yet he's not worthy of a nobel laureate ?

I know they've been trying to create this thread and finally they did. Silly and  insecure and low self esteem clowns , always starting what they can not finish,


[img]http://egyptianguide.net/egypt/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/The-Nobel-Peace-Prize-2.jpg
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Nuff said,



lol @ more celebrated, How do you get celebrated more that the ultimate celebration which is the Nobel?

Jokers. Wetin Achebe do for Nigeria? The man sit for NY playing oversea demonstration when Soyinka with all his Nobel dey on the ground fighting and risking his life for his country like he's been doing all his life. Achebe don spend a day in jail fighting for his country like Wole soyinka? No of course.





If you don't want to rubbish Achebe, you better keep quiet.

Why Nigerians love to celebrate the past beats me. Why celebrate two men who are likely not to outlive the next decade?. Soyinka already said it before that he is handing over to the younger generation. Achebe asked the Younger Nigerians to occupy Abuja and take over their country from old people like him even before the Occupy protests began.
Why not put our energy in likely new geniuses from our generation instead of eternally celebrating 2 people? Are you people not ashamed of unaself?. If that is the case, the Germans/Americans should forever talk about Einstein without making further effort towards achieving something. This Achebe/Soyinka thing is becoming embarrassing for real.

aloy@emeka:

Why Nigerians love to celebrate the past beats me. Why celebrate two men who are likely not to outlive the next decade?. Soyinka already said it before that he is handing over to the younger generation. Achebe asked the Younger Nigerians to occupy Abuja and take over their country from old people like him even before the Occupy protests began.
Why not put our energy in likely new geniuses from our generation instead of eternally celebrating 2 people? Are you people not ashamed of unaself?. If that is the case, the Germans/Americans should forever talk about Einstein without making further effort towards achieving something. This Achebe/Soyinka thing is becoming embarrassing for real.

I still wonder why some idiots come up with such thread !

chino11:

As much as we know that Soyinka is good in what is knows best, but above Achebe remains the only positive symbol of black race, he has consistently been celebrated all over the world with his book -Things Fall Apart, having been translated in over 150 languages. His books are standard curricular all around the world, It is a single feat that have not been achieved even among British and American authors not to talk of Africa where he is the foremost and most influential icon- The Forbes. The only African living that can closely be equated to Achebe is only Mandela.

Dude, listen to yourself !!! Has pathetic bigotry and animalistic feudalism turned you to this? How is Achebe more representative ( ahead of the likes of Martin Luther King, Mandela, Biko ,Nkrumah, Obama, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Haile Selassie, Mohammed Alli, Michael Jackson, Jesse Owen- the man who embarrased Hitler- and many others) as the "only positive symbol of the black race"? You are at the top level of ethnic bigotry i.e the level where folks lie to themselves and use nonsensical logic and fantasy to justify innate inferiority complex and ethnically motivated hatred of others. Achebe and Soyinka are only literary giants. Many black folks , with global influence, will be viewed as far more "positive symbols" ahead of those two.

I bow for the type of ethnic bigotry jam inferiority complex that would make the black race , and all its noble folks through history, inferior in comparison to a single Nigerian writer for you. As a Yoruba man, Soyinka is not even in the list of the 20 black folks I admire most let alone view him as the "only positive symbol of black race" !!! What a ridiculous statement. Shame on you !!!!

Banquet Speech

Wole Soyinka's speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1986

Your Majesties, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It was inevitable that the Nordic world and the African, especially that part of it which constitutes the Yoruba world - should meet at the crossroads of Sweden. That I am the agent of such a symbolic encounter is due very simply to that my creative Muse is Ogun, the god of creativity and destruction, of the lyric and metallurgy. This deity anticipated your scientist Alfred Nobel at the very beginning of time by clearing a path through primordial chaos, dynamiting his way through the core of earth to open a route for his fellow deities who sought to be reunited with us, mortals. I covered that event for my publishers - well, taking a few poetic licences, naturally - under the title IDANRE. You may have run into that reportage which has been translated into Swedish under the title, OGUN SKUGGA. If you have not, I recommend that you proceed to the nearest bookseller for this piece of pre-history which makes Ogun, very definitively, the progenitor of your great inventor, Alfred Nobel.

I urge this especially because, if you happened to take a casual walk through the streets, or peer into the hotel lobbies of Stockholm, you might get the impression that my nation, Nigeria, has tried to solve some of its many problems by shifting half its population surreptitiously to Sweden. I assure you, however, that they have merely come to satisfy a natural curiosity about the true nationality of this inventor. For they cannot understand why their Ogun should have transferred such a potent secret to a Swede rather than to his Yoruba descendants. The mountains of Sweden are a tempting habitat for this deity, we know, but the Swedish winter and long midnights are hardly congenial to his temperament. And while the local acqua-vitae might help to infuse some warmth into his tropical joints, we do know that he tends to stick to his favourite palm wine.

Some day, I suppose, we will unravel this mystery. In the meantime, however, we will content ourselves with saluting the vision which made our presence here today a positive event, since it was Alfred Nobel's hope that the humanistic conversion, even of the most terrible knowledge, can improve the quality of life for mankind. That also is the lesson of Ogun, that essence of the warring duality of human nature. And we join in the endeavour that the lyric face of that demiurge will triumph in our time, snaring for all time that elusive bird - peace - on our planet earth.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1986, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1987



Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1986

By the way, I posted this to remind the op that you can't buy the Nobel Prize like crayfish, otherwise Achebe would have one.

@ILEKE nd co, when u see a thread like this simply peep nd move on with ur phurkhhhiihng life, if u dnt hv anythng to say just keep ur mouth shtd,

Gbawe:

Dude, listen to yourself !!! Has pathetic bigotry and animalistic feudalism turned you to this? How is Achebe more representative ( ahead of the likes of Martin Luther King, Mandela, Biko ,Nkrumah, Obama, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Haile Selassie, Mohammed Alli, Michael Jackson, Jesse Owen- the man who embarrased Hitler- and many others) as the "only positive symbol of the black race"? You are at the top level of ethnic bigotry i.e the level where folks lie to themselves and use nonsensical logic and fantasy to justify innate inferiority complex and ethnically motivated hatred of others. Achebe and Soyinka are only literary giants. Many black folks , with global influence, will be viewed as far more "positive symbols" ahead of those two.

I bow for the type of ethnic bigotry jam inferiority complex that would make the black race , and all its noble folks through history, inferior in comparison to a single Nigerian writer for you. As a Yoruba man, Soyinka is not even in the list of the 20 black folks I admire most let alone view him as the "only positive symbol of black race" !!! What a ridiculous statement. Shame on you !!!!

I have to disagree with you there. Soyinka is more than a literary giant. From his days at UI to when he was jailed for 26 months for supporting Biafra to the present day, Soyinka has been at the forefront of the Nigerian Human Rights and civil liberties movement.



At topic,
what an asinine thread? It seems there are more 'Romance section' type fellows running loose in the Politics section these days.

Katsumoto:

I have to disagree with you there. Soyinka is more than a literary giant. From his days at UI to when he was jailed for 26 months for supporting Biafra to the present day, Soyinka has been at the forefront of the Nigerian Human Rights and civil liberties movement.



At topic,
what an asinine thread? It seems there are more 'Romance section' type fellows running loose in the Politics section these days.

My bad. I did not explain that I meant what I said relative to those known specifically for core greatness in what they were most gifted in like, for example, Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye. Both men were superb musicians even as they had daliances with fighting for just causes. Many of the world's icons (white and black) routinely fought for human right causes. Joanna Lumley for example is , first and foremost , known as an accomplished actress but few are aware of her struggle for the rights of Gurkha through her justice campaign. I meant the same with Soyinka. No disrespect for his human rights efforts.

Stoopid thread.
I love and revere BOTH men equally. Both are RARE Africans. They are two sides of the same coin.
Uncommon geniuses.

Let us not digress, the OP said who has the most GLOBAL COVERAGE among the two.