*Achebe, Chinua
Chinua Achebe
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- *Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
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- Chinua Achebe. Chike’s School Days
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Achebe, Chinua
Nigerian, 1930–
Chinua Achebe is the first major African novelist to be widely read and recognized both inside and outside Africa, and is also renowned for his role as the founding editor of the African Writers series published by Heinemann. His career as an essayist is limited to two collections of essays, Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975) and Hopes and Impediments (1988), as well as The Trouble with Nigeria (1983), a long essay which diagnoses the reasons for the political stagnation of post-colonial Nigeria. However, the influence and importance of his essays have far exceeded their actual number. They have been instrumental in establishing the critical and theoretical issues with which other African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, and the bolekaja critics (Chinweizu and Madubuike) have had to grapple, and along with the work of the Frantz Fanon are among the earliest examples of the type of critical writing that has come to be
known as “postcolonial” criticism.
Achebe’s essays are mainly conversational in nature, written for lectures that he has been invited to give in response to specific questions and situations. In the essays in Morning Yet on Creation Day and Hopes and Impediments (which reproduces five essays from the earlier collection), he articulates three characteristic concerns in his selfappointed role as spokesperson for the African novel. In essays such as “Colonialist Criticism” (1974), he is critical of the failure of European critics to understand African literature on its own terms. In their demand that African fiction be concerned with issues and themes that are “universal,” Achebe sees European critics as perpetuating a colonialist attitude which views “the African writer as a somewhat unfinished European who with patient guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.”
For Achebe, evidence of the autonomy and uniqueness of African literature from its European counterpart can be seen, for example, in the very different role that the African writer must have toward his or her society. In “The Novelist as Teacher” (1965), he attacks the notion that the African writer should adopt the Western Modernist pose of the angst-ridden writer living on the fringes of society. The African novelist has an obligation to educate, to “help society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement.” Achebe is aware this might mean that “…perhaps what I write is applied art as distinct from pure. But who cares? Art is important, but so is education of the kind I have in mind.” The Igbo ceremony of mbari, a festival of images in which every member of the society participates, provides him with an example of artistic production in which “there is no rigid tension between makers of culture and its consumers. Art belongs to all and is a ‘function’ of society” (Morning).
More controversially, Achebe has defended the use of English and other European languages in the production of African fiction against those critics who suggest that authentic African experience can only be represented in an African language. On the one hand, this is because for Achebe, English—being “a language spoken by Africans on African soil” (Morning)—is an African language. As he suggests in “The African Writer and the English Language” (1964), English (as well as French and Arabic) also makes it possible for there to be national literatures in Africa which cut across the enormous linguistic differences present within each nation. Although he feels that the English language can express his experiences as an African, it is important to recognize that “it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its African surroundings” (Morning)—a point which critics of Achebe’s stance have often failed to understand.
One of Achebe’s most famous and important essays—an essay which he has described as his “standard-bearer” (Hopes)—is “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (1975). While admitting that Conrad is “undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction,” Achebe draws attention to the fact that he is nevertheless “a thoroughgoing racist.” In Achebe’s opinion, Western critics have praised Conrad’s novella while never addressing the racism at its core; Conrad depicts Africa as incomprehensible, frenzied, dark, grotesque, and dangerous, and Africans as ugly, inarticulate, inhuman, and savage. Achebe criticizes this failure, and effectively deals with a range of rejoinders which might be used to “save” Conrad from being labeled a racist. For example, while it may be possible ‘to see these attitudes as those of Conrad’s character Marlow, Achebe claims that Conrad “neglects to hint, clearly and adequately, at an alternative form of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters.” While it is now common for literary critics to approach fictional works through a consideration of issues such as race, Achebe’s criticism of Conrad is an early and influential example of the shift of literary criticism toward a more explicit treatment of the broader politics of fiction.
Since the publication of Hopes, Achebe has produced little in the way of either essays or fiction. As the founding editor of Okike: A Nigerian Journal of New Writing (begun 1971; subtitle later changed from Nigerian to African), he has nevertheless continued to play a prominent role in providing a forum for literary and critical writing in Africa. The main thrust of his critical writing has remained the same throughout his career: “What I am saying really boils down to a simple plea for the African novel. Don’t fence me in” (Morning).
IMRE SZEMAN
Biography
Born Albert Chinualumogu, 16 November 1930 in Ogidi. Studied at Government College, Umuahia, 1944–47; University College, Ibadan, 1948–53, B.A. (London), 1953.
Worked in various positions for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos and Enugu, 1954–66. Married Christiana Chinwe Okoli, 1961: two sons and two daughters.
Founding editor, Heinemann African Writers series, 1962–72, and director, Heinemann Educational Books (Nigeria), and Nwankwo-Ifejika (later Nwamife) publishers, Enugu, from 1970; chair, Citadel Books, Enugu, 1967. Senior research fellow, 1967–73, and professor of English, 1973–81, now emeritus, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; also visiting professor or lecturer at various American universities, 1972–90. Served on diplomatic missions for Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–69. Founding editor, Okike: An African Journal of New Writing, from 1971; founder and publisher, Uwa Ndi Igbo: A Bilingual Journal of Igbo Life and Arts, from 1984. Pro-chancellor and chair of the council, Anambra State University of Technology, Enugu, 1986–88.
Awards: many, including the Margaret Wrong Memorial Prize, 1959; Nigerian National Trophy, 1960;
New Statesman Jock Campbell Award, 1965; Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1973;
Nigerian National Merit Award, 1979; Commonwealth Foundation Award, 1984;
honorary degrees from 16 universities. Member, Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1979; Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1982.;
Fellow, Royal Society of Literature, 1983.
Selected Writings
Essays and Related Prose
Morning Yet on Creation Day, 1975
The Trouble with Nigeria, 1983
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays, 1965–1987, 1988
Other writings: five novels (Things Fall Apart, 1958; No Longer at Ease, 1960; Arrow of God, 1964; A Man of the People, 1966; Anthills of the Savannah, 1987), two collections of short stories, a collection of poetry, and books for children.
Bibliography
Okpu, B.M., Chinua Achebe: A Bibliography, Lagos: Libriservice, 1984
Further Reading
Carroll, David, Chinua Achebe: Novelist, Poet, Critic, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990 (original edition, 1980)
Gikandi, Simon, Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction, Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, and London: Currey, 1991
Innes, C.L., Chinua Achebe: A Critical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990
Innes, C.L., and Bernth Lindfors, editors, Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1978; London: Heinemann Educational, 1979
JanMohammed, Abdul R., Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics of Literature in Colonial
Africa, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988 (original edition, 1983)
Killam, G.D., The Writings of Chinua Achebe, London: Heinemann Educational, 1977
(original edition, as The Novels of Chinua Achebe, 1969)
Moses, Michael Valdez, The Novel and the Globalization of Culture, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Chinua Achebe: A Man of the People,” in his Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics, London: Heinemann, 1972
Ojinmah, Umelo, Chinua Achebe: New Perspectives, Ibadan: Spectrum, 1991
Peterson, Kirsten Holt, and Anna Rutherford, editors, Chinua Achebe: A Celebration, Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann International, 1991
Ugah, Ada, In the Beginning: Chinua Achebe at Work, Ibadan: Heinemann Educational, 1990
Wanjala, Chris L., editor, Standpoints on African Literature: A Critical Anthology, Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1973
Wren, Robert, Achebe’s World: The Historical and Cultural Context of the Novels of Chinua Achebe, Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1980; Harlow: Longman, 1981
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