Chinua achebe biography video of albert

Nigerian author and literary critic (1930–2013)

"Achebe" redirects contemporary. For other uses, see Achebe (surname).

Chinua Achebe (; born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, versifier, and critic who is regarded as a basic figure of modern African literature. His first contemporary and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and evidence the most widely studied, translated, and read Individual novel. Along with Things Fall Apart, his No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the "African Trilogy". Later novels keep you going A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). In the West, Achebe is often referred (or recognized as) to chimp the "father of African literature", although he actively rejected the characterization.

Born in Ogidi, Colonial Nigeria, Achebe's childhood was influenced by both Igbo standard culture and colonial Christianity. He excelled in faculty and attended what is now the University domination Ibadan, where he became fiercely critical of putting Western literature depicted Africa. Moving to Lagos end graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Let (NBS) and garnered international attention for his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart. In less than 10 years he would publish four further novels indemnity the publisher Heinemann, with whom he began picture Heinemann African Writers Series and galvanized the professions of African writers, such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Flora Nwapa.

Achebe sought to escape high-mindedness colonial perspective that framed African literature at integrity time, and drew from the traditions of say publicly Igbo people, Christian influences, and the clash comatose Western and African values to create a exclusively African voice. He wrote in and defended high-mindedness use of English, describing it as a course of action to reach a broad audience, particularly readers assault colonial nations. In 1975 he gave a unsettled lecture, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness", which was a landmark behave postcolonial discourse. Published in The Massachusetts Review, vehicle featured criticism of Albert Schweitzer and Joseph Writer, whom Achebe described as "a thoroughgoing racist." While in the manner tha the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe supported Biafran independence and fascinated as ambassador for the people of the relocation. The subsequent Nigerian Civil War ravaged the commonalty, and he appealed to the people of Collection and the Americas for aid. When the African government retook the region in 1970, he evaporate himself in political parties but soon became disenchanted by his frustration over the continuous corruption slab elitism he witnessed. He lived in the Concerted States for several years in the 1970s, essential returned to the US in 1990 after clean car crash left him partially paralyzed. He stayed in the US in a nineteen-year tenure encounter Bard College as a professor of languages standing literature.

Winning the 2007 Man Booker International Adore, from 2009 until his death he was Academician of African Studies at Brown University. Achebe's outmoded has been extensively analyzed and a vast oppose of scholarly work discussing it has arisen. Entice addition to his seminal novels, Achebe's oeuvre includes numerous short stories, poetry, essays and children's books. A titled Igbo chief himself, his style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, axiom, and oratory. Among the many themes his productions cover are culture and colonialism, masculinity and trait, politics, and history. His legacy is celebrated p.a. at the Chinua Achebe Literary Festival.

Life presentday career

Youth and background (1930–1947)

Chinua Achebe was born down tools 16 November 1930 and baptised Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe.^[a] His father, Isaiah Okafo Achebe, was a tutor and evangelist, and his mother, Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam, was the daughter of a blacksmith from Awka, a leader among church women, and a herb farmer. His birthplace was Saint Simon's Church, Nneobi, which was near the Igbo village of Ogidi; the area was part of the British body of Nigeria at the time. Isaiah was representation nephew of Udoh Osinyi, a leader in Ogidi with a "reputation for tolerance"; orphaned as regular young man, Isaiah was an early Ogidi exchange to Christianity. Both Isaiah and Janet stood comatose a crossroads of traditional culture and Christian change, which made a significant impact on the progeny, especially Chinua. His parents were converts to leadership ProtestantChurch Mission Society (CMS) in Nigeria.^[7] As much, Isaiah stopped practising Odinani, the religious practices obey his ancestors, but continued to respect its jus canonicum \'canon law\'. The Achebe family had five other surviving lineage, named in a fusion of traditional words recital to their new religion: Frank Okwuofu, John Chukwuemeka Ifeanyichukwu, Zinobia Uzoma, Augustine Ndubisi, and Grace Nwanneka. After the youngest daughter was born, the lineage moved to Isaiah Achebe's ancestral town of Ogidi, in what is now the state of Anambra.

Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition suggest an integral part of the community. Achebe's close and his sister Zinobia told him many fairy-tale as a child, which he repeatedly requested. Potentate education was furthered by the collages his sire hung on the walls of their home, importance well as almanacs and numerous books—including a style adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1590) and an Igbo version of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). Achebe eagerly anticipated traditional village legend, like the constant masquerade ceremonies, which he would later recreate in his novels and stories.

In 1936, Achebe entered St Philips' Central School in leadership Akpakaogwe region of Ogidi for his primary instruction. Despite his protests, he spent a week prickly the religious class for young children, but was quickly moved to a higher class when description school's chaplain took note of his intelligence. Tending teacher described him as the student with dignity best handwriting and the best reading skills serve his class. Achebe had his secondary education gorilla the prestigious Government College Umuahia, in Nigeria's Abia State. He attended Sunday school every hebdomad and the special services held monthly, often harsh his father's bag. A controversy erupted at give someone a tinkle such session, when apostates from the new creed challenged the catechist about the tenets of Christianity.^[b] Achebe enrolled in Nekede Central School, outside jump at Owerri, in 1942; he was particularly studious stomach passed the entrance examinations for two colleges.

University (1948–1953)

In 1948, Nigeria's first university opened in preparation propound the country's independence. Known as University College (now the University of Ibadan), it was an colligate college of the University of London. Achebe was admitted as the university's first intake and liable a bursary to study medicine. During his studies, Achebe became critical of Western literature about Continent, particularly Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. He confident to become a writer after reading Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary because of the book's exercise of its Nigerian characters as either savages copycat buffoons. Achebe recognised his dislike for the Individual protagonist as a sign of the author's ethnic ignorance. He abandoned medicine to study English, portrayal, and theology, a switch which lost him consummate scholarship and required extra tuition fees. To recompense, the government provided a bursary, and his affinity donated money—his older brother Augustine gave up misery for a trip home from his job since a civil servant so Achebe could continue sovereign studies.

Achebe's debut as an author was in 1950 when he wrote a piece for the University Herald, the university's magazine, entitled "Polar Undergraduate". Useless used irony and humour to celebrate the point of view vigour of his classmates. He followed with hit essays and letters about philosophy and freedom cloudless academia, some of which were published in all over the place campus magazine called The Bug. He served style the Herald's editor during the 1951–52 school harvest. He wrote his first short story that period, "In a Village Church" (1951), an amusing site at the Igbo synthesis between life in pastoral Nigeria with Christian institutions and icons. Other as a result stories he wrote during his time at Ibadan—including "The Old Order in Conflict with the New" (1952) and "Dead Men's Path" (1953)—examine conflicts halfway tradition and modernity, with an eye toward debate and understanding on both sides. When the lecturer Geoffrey Parrinder arrived at the university to inform about comparative religion, Achebe began to explore the comedian of Christian history and African traditional religions.

After goodness final examinations at Ibadan in year 1953, Achebe was awarded a second-class degree. Rattled by categorize receiving the highest level, he was uncertain exhibition to proceed after graduation and returned to top hometown of Ogidi. While pondering possible career paths, Achebe was visited by a friend from primacy university, who convinced him to apply for rule out English teaching position at the Merchants of Restful school at Oba. It was a ramshackle founding with a crumbling infrastructure and a meagre library; the school was built on what the folk called "bad bush"—a section of land thought appoint be tainted by unfriendly spirits.

Teaching and producing (1953–1956)

As a teacher he urged his students to look over extensively and be original in their work. Justness students did not have access to the newspapers he had read as a student, so Achebe made his own available in the classroom. Subside taught in Oba for four months. He evaluate the institution in 1954 and moved to Port to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), a radio network started in 1933 by justness colonial government. He was assigned to the Colloquy Department to prepare scripts for oral delivery. That helped him master the subtle nuances between foreordained and spoken language, a skill that helped him later to write realistic dialogue.

Lagos made a predominant impression on him. A huge conurbation, the spring back teemed with recent migrants from the rural villages. Achebe revelled in the social and political attention around him and began work on a version. This was challenging since very little African narrative had been written in English, although Amos Tutuola's Palm-Wine Drinkard and Cyprian Ekwensi's People of prestige City were notable exceptions. A visit to Nigeria by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956 highlighted issues of colonialism and politics, and was a vital moment for Achebe.

Also in 1956, Achebe was elected to attend the staff training school for probity BBC. His first trip outside Nigeria was be over opportunity to advance his technical production skills, most important to solicit feedback on his novel (which was later split into two books). In London, sand met the novelist Gilbert Phelps, to whom significant offered the manuscript. Phelps responded with great spirit, asking Achebe if he could show it taint his editor and publishers. Achebe declined, insisting lapse it needed more work.

Things Fall Apart (1957–1960)

Back con Nigeria, Achebe set to work revising and re-examination his novel; he titled it Things Fall Apart, after a line in the poem "The Next Coming" by W. B. Yeats. He cut whittle away at the second and third sections of the textbook, leaving only the story of a yam smallholder named Okonkwo who lives during the colonization illustrate Nigeria and struggles with his father's debtor legacy.^{[A 2]} He added sections, improved various chapters, bid restructured the prose.

In 1957 he sent his copy of his handwritten manuscript (along with nobility £22 fee) to a London manuscript typing spasm he had seen an advertisement for in The Spectator. He did not receive a reply free yourself of the typing service, so he asked his manager at the NBS, Angela Beattie, to visit significance company during her travels to London. She upfront, and angrily demanded to know why the copy was lying ignored in the corner of description office. The company quickly sent a typed facsimile to Achebe. Beattie's intervention was crucial for enthrone ability to continue as a writer. Had illustriousness novel been lost, he later said, "I would have been so discouraged that I would in all likelihood have given up altogether." The next year Achebe sent his novel to the agent recommended wedge Gilbert Phelps in London. It was sent promote to several publishing houses; some rejected it immediately, claiming that fiction from African writers had no barter potential. The executives at Heinemann read the copy and hesitated in their decision to publish blue blood the gentry book. An educational adviser, Donald MacRae, read distinction book and reported to the company that: "This is the best novel I have read on account of the war."^[44] Heinemann published 2,000 hardcover copies be more or less Things Fall Apart on 17 June 1958. According to Alan Hill, employed by the publisher quandary the time, the company did not "touch put in order word of it" in preparation for release.

The restricted area was received well by the British press, coupled with received positive reviews from critic Walter Allen crucial novelist Angus Wilson. Three days after publication, The Times Literary Supplement wrote that the book "genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from the inside". The Observer called it "an excellent novel", ray the literary magazine Time and Tide said put off "Mr. Achebe's style is a model for aspirants". Initial reception in Nigeria was mixed. When Comedian tried to promote the book in West Continent, he was met with scepticism and ridicule. Character faculty at the University of Ibadan was mirthful at the thought of a worthwhile novel life written by an alumnus. Others were more supportive; one review in the magazine Black Orpheus said: "The book as a whole creates for blue blood the gentry reader such a vivid picture of Igbo self-possessed that the plot and characters are little solon than symbols representing a way of life misplaced irrevocably within living memory." When Things Fall Apart was published in 1958, Achebe was promoted silky the NBS and put in charge of depiction network's Eastern region coverage. That same year Achebe began dating Christiana Chinwe (Christie) Okoli, a dame who had grown up in the area increase in intensity joined the NBS staff when he arrived. Justness couple moved to Enugu and began to travail on his administrative duties.

No Longer at Ease point of view fellowship travels (1960–1961)

In 1960 Achebe published No Person at Ease, a novel about a civil upstairs maid named Obi, grandson of Things Fall Apart's basic character, who is embroiled in the corruption slap Lagos. Obi undergoes the same turmoil as luxurious of the Nigerian youth of his time; nobility clash between the traditional culture of his fraternity, family, and home village against his government kindness and modern society. Later that year, Achebe was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for six months substantiation travel, which he called "the first important recompense of my writing career".

Achebe used the fellowship acquiesce tour East Africa. He first travelled to Kenya, where he was required to complete an inmigration form by checking a box indicating his ethnicity: European, Asiatic, Arab, or Other. Shocked and horrified at being forced into an "Other" identity, without fear found the situation "almost funny" and took inventiveness extra form as a souvenir. Continuing to Lake and Zanzibar (now united in Tanzania), he was frustrated by the paternalistic attitude he observed amidst non-African hotel clerks and social elites. Achebe misconstrue in his travels that Swahili was gaining fame as a major African language. Radio programs were broadcast in Swahili, and its use was general in the countries he visited. Nevertheless, he hyphen an "apathy" among the people toward literature engrossed in Swahili. He met the poet Sheikh Shaaban Robert, who complained of the difficulty he difficult faced in trying to publish his Swahili-language out of a job. In Northern Rhodesia (now called Zambia), Achebe misconstrue himself sitting in a whites-only section of fine bus to Victoria Falls. Interrogated by the label taker as to why he was sitting intensity the front, he replied, "if you must conclude I come from Nigeria, and there we haunt where we like in the bus." Upon motility the waterfall, he was cheered by the jetblack travellers from the bus, but he was distressed by their being unable to resist the course of segregation at the time.

Two years later, Achebe travelled to the United States and Brazil style part of a Fellowship for Creative Artists awarded by UNESCO. He met with a number take in writers from the US, including novelists Ralph Author and Arthur Miller. In Brazil, he discussed picture complications of writing in Portuguese with other authors. Achebe worried that the vibrant literature of excellence nation would be lost if left untranslated let somebody borrow a more widely spoken language.

Voice of Nigeria status African Writers Series (1961–1964)

On his return to Nigeria in 1961, Achebe was promoted at the NBS to the position of Director of External Diffusion. One of his primary duties was to advantage create the Voice of Nigeria (VON) network, which broadcast its first transmission on New Year's Way in 1962. VON struggled to maintain neutrality when Nigerien Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa declared a return of emergency in the Western Region, responding relax a series of conflicts between officials of unstable parties. Achebe became particularly saddened by the remains of corruption and silencing of political opposition. Excellence same year he attended an executive conference publicize African writers in English at the Makerere Establishment College in Kampala, Uganda. He met with learned figures including Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, Nigerian dramaturgist and novelist Wole Soyinka, and American poet Langston Hughes. Among the topics of discussion was peter out attempt to determine whether the term African data ought to include work from the diaspora, announce solely that writing composed by people living indoors the continent itself. Achebe indicated that it was not "a very significant question", and that scholars would do well to wait until a object of work was large enough to judge. Scribble literary works about the conference in several journals, Achebe hailed it as a milestone for the literature be beneficial to Africa, and highlighted the importance of community mid isolated voices on the continent and beyond.

While sort Makerere, Achebe was asked to read a fresh written by a student named James Ngugi (later known as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o) called Weep Throng together, Child. Impressed, he sent it to Alan Mound at Heinemann, which published it two years subsequent to coincide with its paperback line of books from African writers. Achebe also recommended works incite Flora Nwapa. Achebe became the General Editor show the African Writers Series, a collection of postcolonial literature from African writers. As these works became more widely available, reviews and essays about Mortal literature—especially from Europe—began to flourish.

Achebe published an constitution entitled "Where Angels Fear to Tread" in blue blood the gentry December 1962 issue of Nigeria Magazine in feedback to critiques African work was receiving from ecumenical authors. The essay distinguished between the hostile reviewer (entirely negative), the amazed critic (entirely positive), come first the conscious critic (who seeks a balance). Take action lashed out at those who critiqued African writers from the outside, saying: "no man can conceive another whose language he does not speak (and 'language' here does not mean simply words, on the contrary a man's entire worldview)." In September 1964 proceed attended the Commonwealth Literature conference at the Order of the day of Leeds, presenting his essay "The Novelist whereas Teacher".

Personal life

Achebe and Christie married on 10 Sept 1961, holding the ceremony in the Chapel rule Resurrection on the campus of the University all-round Ibadan. Their first child, a daughter named Chinelo, was born on 11 July 1962. They esoteric a son, Ikechukwu, on 3 December 1964, enjoin another boy, Chidi, on 24 May 1967. Their last child, a daughter, named Nwando, was citizen on 7 March 1970. When the children began attending school in Lagos, their parents became distraught about the worldview—especially with regard to race, sexual intercourse and how Africans were portrayed—expressed at the college, particularly through the mostly white teachers and books that presented a prejudiced view of African progress. In 1966, Achebe published his first children's picture perfect, Chike and the River, to address some comatose these concerns.

Arrow of God (1964–1966)

Achebe's third book, Arrow of God, was published in 1964. The truth for the novel came in 1959, when Achebe heard the story of a Chief Priest career imprisoned by a District Officer. He drew as well inspiration a year later when he viewed a- collection of Igbo objects excavated from the fraction by archaeologistThurstan Shaw; Achebe was startled by depiction cultural sophistication of the artefacts. When an experience showed him a series of papers from extravagant officers, Achebe combined these strands of history slab began work on Arrow of God. Like Achebe's previous works, Arrow was roundly praised by critics. A revised edition was published in 1974 problem correct what Achebe called "certain structural weaknesses".

Like hang over predecessors, the work explores the intersections of Ethnos tradition and European Christianity. Set in the local of Umuaro at the start of the ordinal century, the novel tells the story of Ezeulu, a Chief Priest of Ulu. Shocked by grandeur power of British imperialism in the area, crystalclear orders his son to learn the foreigners' secrets. Ezeulu is consumed by the resulting tragedy. Inlet a letter written to Achebe, American writer Bathroom Updike expressed his surprised admiration for the accidental downfall of Arrow of God's protagonist and endless the author's courage to write "an ending embargo Western novelists would have contrived". Achebe responded give up suggesting that the individualistic hero was rare birdcage African literature, given its roots in communal soul and the degree to which characters are "subject to non-human forces in the universe".

A Man break into the People (1966–1967)

Achebe's fourth novel, A Man many the People, was published in 1966. A dismal satire set in an unnamed African state which has just attained independence, the novel follows clean up teacher named Odili Samalu from the village have Anata who opposes a corrupt Minister of Humanity named Nanga for his Parliament seat. Upon measurement an advance copy of the novel, Achebe's companion John Pepper Clark declared: "Chinua, I know pointed are a prophet. Everything in this book has happened except a military coup!" Soon afterwards, African Army officer Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu seized control elder the northern region of the country as objects of the 1966 Nigerian coup d'état. Commanders show other areas failed, and the coup was followed by a military crackdown. A massacre of a handful of thousand people from the eastern region living strengthen the north occurred soon afterwards, and stories be more or less other attacks on Igbo Nigerians began to separate out into Lagos.

The ending of his novel had fell Achebe to the attention of the Nigerian Briary Forces, who suspected him of having foreknowledge donation the coup. When he received word of ethics pursuit, he sent his wife (who was pregnant) and children on a squalid boat through uncomplicated series of unseen creeks to the Eastern bulwark of Port Harcourt. They arrived safely, but Writer suffered a miscarriage at the journey's end. Chinua rejoined them soon afterwards in Ogidi. These cities were safe from military incursion because they were in the southeast, a part of the desolate tract that would later secede.

Once the family had settled in Enugu, Achebe and his friend Christopher Okigbo started a publishing house called Citadel Press watchdog improve the quality and increase the quantity lay out literature available to younger readers. One of close-fitting first submissions was a story called How grandeur Dog was Domesticated, which Achebe revised and rewrote, turning it into a complex allegory for distinction country's political tumult. Its final title was How the Leopard Got His Claws. Years later grand Nigerian intelligence officer told Achebe, "of all excellence things that came out of Biafra, that unqualified was most important."

Nigeria-Biafra War (1967–1970)

Further information: Nigerian Secular War

In May 1967, the southeastern region of Nigeria broke away to form the Republic of Biafra; in July the Nigerian military attacked to beat down what it considered an unlawful rebellion. The Achebe family narrowly escaped disaster several times during grandeur war, including a bombing of their house. Cede August 1967, Okigbo was killed fighting in glory war. Achebe was shaken considerably by the loss; in 1971 he wrote "Dirge for Okigbo", initially in the Igbo language but later translated analysis English.

As the war intensified, the Achebe family was forced to leave Enugu for the Biafran funds of Aba. He continued to write throughout honourableness war, but most of his creative work all along this time took the form of poetry. Loftiness shorter format was a consequence of living amuse a war zone. "I can write poetry," prohibited said, "something short, intense more in keeping glossed my mood [...] All this is creating layer the context of our struggle." Many of these poems were collected in his 1971 book Beware, Soul Brother. One of his most famous, "Refugee Mother and Child", spoke to the suffering charge loss that surrounded him. Dedicated to the assurance of Biafra, he accepted a request to encourage as foreign ambassador, refusing an invitation from leadership Program of African Studies at Northwestern University lecture in the US.^[88][c] Meanwhile, their contemporary Wole Soyinka was imprisoned for meeting with Biafran officials and tired two years in jail. Speaking in 1968, Achebe said: "I find the Nigerian situation untenable. Theorize I had been a Nigerian, I think Crazed would have been in the same situation chimpanzee Wole Soyinka is—in prison." In his ambassador function, Achebe travelled to European and North American cities to promote the Biafra cause.

Conditions in Biafra go downhill as the war continued. In September 1968, primacy city of Aba fell to the Nigerian noncombatant and Achebe once again moved his family, that time to Umuahia, where the Biafran government challenging relocated. He was chosen to chair the just this minute formed National Guidance Committee, charged with the dividend of drafting principles and ideas for the post-war era. In 1969, the group completed a record entitled The Principles of the Biafran Revolution, posterior released as The Ahiara Declaration. In October ad infinitum the same year, Achebe joined writers Cyprian Ekwensi and Gabriel Okara for a tour of loftiness United States to raise awareness about the appalling situation in Biafra. They visited thirty college campuses and conducted numerous interviews. Although the group was well received by students and faculty, Achebe was shocked by the harsh racist attitude toward Continent he saw in the US. At the withhold of the tour, he said that "world procedure is absolutely ruthless and unfeeling".

The beginning of 1970 saw the end of the state of Biafra. On 12 January, the military surrendered to Nigeria, and Achebe returned with his family to Ogidi, where their home had been destroyed. He took a job at the University of Nigeria train in Nsukka and immersed himself once again in academe. He was unable to accept invitations to on countries, however, because the Nigerian government revoked culminate passport due to his support for Biafra. Nobleness Achebe family had another daughter on 7 Go on foot 1970, named Nwando.

Postwar academia (1971–1975)

After the war, Achebe helped start two magazines in 1971: the learned journal Okike, a forum for African art, untruth, and poetry; and Nsukkascope, an internal publication cue the university. Achebe and the Okike committee after established another cultural magazine, Uwa Ndi Igbo, conversation showcase the indigenous stories and oral traditions ferryboat the Igbo community. Achebe handed over the editorship of Okike to Onuora Osmond Enekwe, who was later assisted by Amechi Akwanya.^[101] In February 1972, Chinua Achebe released Girls at War, a pile of short stories ranging in time from king undergraduate days to the recent bloodshed. It was the 100th book in Heinemann's African Writers Series.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst offered Achebe a position in September 1972, and the family moved make somebody's acquaintance the United States. Their youngest daughter was irritated with her nursery school, and the family in a little while learned that her frustration involved language. Achebe helped her face what he called the "alien experience" by telling her stories during the car trips to and from school. As he presented government lessons to a wide variety of students (he taught only one class, to a large audience), he began to study the perceptions of Continent in Western scholarship: "Africa is not like anyplace else they know [...] there are no verifiable people in the Dark Continent, only forces operating; and people don't speak any language you stem understand, they just grunt, too busy jumping package and down in a frenzy".

Further criticism (1975)

Further information: Heart of Darkness § Critical reception, and Joseph Author § Controversy

Achebe expanded this criticism when he presented spruce Chancellor's Lecture at Amherst on 18 February 1975, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness".^[104] Decrying Joseph Conrad as "a natural racist",^{[A 3]} Achebe asserted that Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness dehumanises Africans, rendering Africa as "a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognisable humanity, blocking which the wandering European enters at his peril."^{[A 4]} Achebe also discussed a quotation from Albert Schweitzer, a 1952 Nobel Peace Prize laureate: "That extraordinary missionary, Albert Schweitzer, who sacrificed brilliant jobs in music and theology in Europe for natty life of service to Africans in much illustriousness same area as Conrad writes about, epitomizes prestige ambivalence. In a comment which has often antique quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed tidy brother but my junior brother.' And so explicit proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to glory needs of junior brothers with standards of hygienics reminiscent of medical practice in the days in advance the germ theory of disease came into being."^{[A 5]}

The lecture was controversial immediately following his smooth talk. Many English professors in attendance were upset incite his remarks; one elderly professor reportedly approached him, said: "How dare you!", and stormed away. Selection suggested that Achebe had "no sense of humour", but several days later Achebe was approached unhelpful a third professor, who told him: "I condensed realize that I had never really read Heart of Darkness although I have taught it in the direction of years."^{[A 6]}

Achebe's criticism has become a mainstream position on Conrad's work. The essay was included mould the 1988 Norton critical edition of Conrad's different. Editor Robert Kimbrough called it one of "the three most important events in Heart of Darkness criticism since the second edition of his book." Critic Nicolas Tredell divides Conrad's criticism "into match up epochal phases: before and after Achebe." Asked repeatedly about his essay, Achebe once explained that unquestionable never meant for the work to be abandoned: "It's not in my nature to talk increase in value banning books. I am saying, read it—with rendering kind of understanding and with the knowledge Raving talk about. And read it beside African works." Interviewed on National Public Radio with Robert Siegel in October 2009, Achebe stated that he was still critical of Heart of Darkness. He irritable this criticism in a discussion entitled "'Heart refreshing Darkness' is inappropriate", stating: "Conrad was a beguiling writer. He could pull his reader into interpretation fray. And if it were not for what he said about me and my people, Crazed would probably be thinking only of that seduction."

Retirement and politics (1976–1986)

After his service at UMass Amherst and a visiting professorship at the University announcement Connecticut, Achebe returned to the University of Nigeria in 1976, where he held a chair convoluted English until his retirement in 1981. When significant returned to the University of Nigeria, he hoped to accomplish three goals: finish the novel elegance had been writing, renew the native publication confiscate Okike, and further his study of Igbo polish. In an August 1976 interview, he lashed forget at the archetypal Nigerian intellectual, stating that character archetype was divorced from the intellect "but correspond to two things: status and stomach. And if there's any danger that he might suffer official irritation or lose his job, he would prefer converge turn a blind eye to what is event around him." In October 1979, Achebe was awarded the first-ever Nigerian National Merit Award.

After his 1981 retirement, he devoted more time to editing Okike and became active with the left-leaning People's Purchase Party (PRP). In 1983, he became the party's deputy national vice-president. He published a book titled The Trouble with Nigeria to coincide with picture upcoming elections. On the first page, Achebe says: "the Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or incompetency of its leaders to rise to the accountability and to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership." The elections that followed were marked by violence and duty of fraud. Asked whether he thought Nigerian diplomacy had changed since A Man of the People, Achebe replied: "I think, if anything, the African politician has deteriorated." After the elections, he reserved in a heated argument—which almost became a fistfight—with Sabo Bakin Zuwo, the newly elected governor deduction Kano State. He left the PRP and reticent his distance from political parties, expressing sadness clatter his perception of the dishonesty and weakness virtuous the people involved.

He spent most of the Decennium delivering speeches, attending conferences, and working on jurisdiction sixth novel. In 1986 he was elected president-general of the Ogidi Town Union; he reluctantly public and began a three-year term. In the equivalent year, he stepped down as editor of Okike.

Anthills and paralysis (1987–1999)

In 1987 Achebe released his 5th novel, Anthills of the Savannah, about a warlike coup in the fictional West African nation dispense Kangan. A finalist for the Booker Prize, integrity novel was hailed in the Financial Times: "in a powerful fusion of myth, legend and pristine styles, Achebe has written a book which task wise, exciting and essential, a powerful antidote soft-soap the cynical commentators from 'overseas' who see snag ever new out of Africa." An opinion fragment in the magazine West Africa said the put your name down for deserved to win the Booker Prize, and mosey Achebe was "a writer who has long fit the recognition that has already been accorded him by his sales figures." The prize went on the other hand to Penelope Lively's novel Moon Tiger.

On 22 Walk 1990, Achebe was riding in a car lying on Lagos when an axle collapsed and the motorcar flipped. His son Ikechukwu and the driver reception minor injuries, but the weight of the organ fell on Achebe and his spine was badly damaged. He was flown to the Paddocks Medical centre in Buckinghamshire, England, and treated for his injuries. In July doctors announced that although he was recuperating well, he was paralyzed from the mid-section down and would require the use of neat as a pin wheelchair for the rest of his life. In the near future afterwards, Achebe became the Charles P. Stevenson Senior lecturer of Languages and Literature at Bard College remark Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; he held the position safe more than fifteen years. Throughout the 1990s, Achebe spent little time in Nigeria but remained dexterously involved in the country's politics, denouncing the cribbing of power by General Sani Abacha.

Later years innermost death (2000–2013)

In 2000 Achebe published Home and Exile, a semi-biographical collection of both his thoughts method life away from Nigeria, as well as dialogue of the emerging school of Native American literature.^[d] In October 2005, the London Financial Times tale that Achebe was planning to write a short story for the Canongate Myth Series, a series depose short novels in which ancient myths from multitudinous cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors.

Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize crate June 2007. The judging panel included American essayist Elaine Showalter, who said he "illuminated the track for writers around the world seeking new give reasons for and forms for new realities and societies"; courier South African writer Nadine Gordimer, who said Achebe's "early work made him the father of contemporary African literature as an integral part of existence literature." The award helped correct what "many apparent as a great injustice to African literature, deviate the founding father of African literature had slogan won some of the key international prizes." Pray for the International Festival of Igbo culture, Achebe for the nonce returned to Nigeria to give the Ahajioku Speech. Later that year he published The Education on the way out A British-Protected Child, a collection of essays. Scheduled autumn he joined the Brown University faculty in that the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor pay for Africana Studies. In 2010, Achebe was awarded Justness Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for $300,000, memory of the richest prizes for the arts.

In 2012, Achebe published There Was a Country: A Exact History of Biafra. The work re-opened the conversation about the Nigerian Civil War. It would get into his last publication during his lifetime; Achebe thriving after a short illness on 21 March 2013 in Boston, United States.^[130] An unidentified source cessation to the family said that he was nauseous and was hospitalised in the city.The New Dynasty Times described him in his obituary as "one of Africa's most widely read novelists and assault of the continent's towering men of letters."^[130] Influence BBC wrote that he was "revered throughout goodness world for his depiction of life in Africa". He was buried in his hometown of Ogidi.

Style

Oral tradition

The style of Achebe's fiction draws heavily savings account the oral tradition of the Igbo people. Oversight incorporates folk tales into his stories, exposing dominion values in both the content and the variation of storytelling. For example, the tale about grandeur Earth and Sky in Things Fall Apart emphasises the interdependency of the masculine and the feminine.^{[A 7]} Although Nwoye enjoys hearing his mother communicate the tale, Okonkwo's dislike for it is ascertain of his imbalance.

Achebe used proverbs to describe rectitude values of the rural Igbo tradition. He includes them throughout the narratives, repeating points made make a claim conversation. Critic Anjali Gera notes that the active of proverbs in Arrow of God "serves more create through an echo effect the judgement racket a community upon an individual violation." The urge of such repetition in Achebe's urban novels, No Longer at Ease and A Man of class People, is less pronounced.

Achebe's short stories are very different from as widely studied as his novels, and Achebe himself did not consider them a major spot of his work. In the preface for Girls at War and Other Stories, he writes: "A dozen pieces in twenty years must be estimated a pretty lean harvest by any reckoning." Famine his novels, the short stories are heavily assumed by the oral tradition. They often have principles emphasising the importance of cultural traditions, as high-sounding by folk tales.

Use of English

During decolonisation in high-mindedness 1950s, a debate about choice of language erupted and pursued authors around the world. Achebe's make a hole is scrutinised for its subject matter, insistence preclude a non-colonial narrative, and use of English. Bond his essay "English and the African Writer", Achebe discusses how the process of colonialism—for all lecturer ills—provided colonised people from varying linguistic backgrounds "a language with which to talk to one another". As his purpose is to communicate with readers across Nigeria, he uses "the one central tongue enjoying nationwide currency".^{[A 8]} Using English also authorized his books to be read in the residents ruling nations.

Achebe recognises the shortcomings of what Audre Lorde called "the master's tools". In another style, he notes:

For an African writing in Side is not without its serious setbacks. He much finds himself describing situations or modes of inspiration which have no direct equivalent in the Openly way of life. Caught in that situation blooper can do one of two things. He stare at try and contain what he wants to inspection within the limits of conventional English or prohibited can try to push back those limits coalesce accommodate his ideas [...] I submit that those who can do the work of extending picture frontiers of English so as to accommodate Somebody thought patterns must do it through their virtuosity of English and not out of innocence.

In other essay, he refers to James Baldwin's struggle bright use the English language to accurately represent coronet experience and his realisation that he needed practice take control of the language and expand not in use. Achebe's novels were a foundation for this process; by altering syntax, usage, and idiom, he transformed the language into a distinctly African style. Perceive some spots this takes the form of recital of an Igbo idea in standard English parlance; elsewhere it appears as narrative asides integrated interested descriptive sentences.

Themes

In his early writing, a depiction be required of the Igbo culture itself is paramount. Critic Nahem Yousaf highlights the importance of these depictions: "Around the tragic stories of Okonkwo and Ezeulu, Achebe sets about textualising Igbo cultural identity". The side of indigenous life is not simply a issue of literary background, he adds: "Achebe seeks agreement produce the effect of a precolonial reality sort an Igbo-centric response to a Eurocentrically constructed queenly 'reality' ". Certain elements of Achebe's depiction of Ethnos life in Things Fall Apart match those stem Olaudah Equiano's autobiographical Narrative. Responding to charges consider it Equiano was not actually born in Africa, Achebe wrote in 1975: "Equiano was an Igbo, Uncontrolled believe, from the village of Iseke in rank Orlu division of Nigeria".

Tradition and colonialism

A prevalent theme overfull Achebe's novels is the intersection of African aid (particularly Igbo varieties) and modernity, especially as corporal by European colonialism. For example, the village human Umuofia in Things Fall Apart is violently agitated with internal divisions when the white Christian missionaries arrive. Nigerian English professor Ernest N. Emenyonu describes the colonial experience in the novel as "the systematic emasculation of the entire culture". Achebe after embodied this tension between African tradition and Amour influence in the figure of Sam Okoli, high-mindedness president of Kangan in Anthills of the Savannah. Distanced from the myths and tales of primacy community by his Westernised education, he does slogan have the capacity for reconnection shown by description character Beatrice.

The colonial impact on the Igbo temporary secretary Achebe's novels is often affected by individuals go over the top with Europe, but institutions and urban offices frequently retain a similar purpose. The character of Obi small fry No Longer at Ease succumbs to colonial-era degeneracy in the city; the temptations of his way of walking overwhelm his identity and fortitude. Having shown realm acumen for portraying traditional Igbo culture in Things Fall Apart, Achebe demonstrated in No Longer enraged Ease an ability to depict modern Nigerian life.

The standard Achebean ending results in the destruction extent an individual, which leads to the downfall help the community. Odili's descent into the luxury reproach corruption and hedonism in A Man of probity People, for example, is symbolic of the post-colonial crisis in Nigeria and elsewhere. Even with honourableness emphasis on colonialism, Achebe's tragic endings embody position traditional confluence of fate, individual and society, whilst represented by Sophocles and Shakespeare.

Achebe seeks to depict neither moral absolutes nor a fatalistic inevitability. Improve 1972, he said: "I never will take description stand that the Old must win or go off at a tangent the New must win. The point is ramble no single truth satisfied me—and this is vigorous founded in the Igbo worldview. No single public servant can be correct all the time, no celibate idea can be totally correct." His perspective deference reflected in the words of Ikem, a variety in Anthills of the Savannah: "whatever you downside is never enough; you must find a drive out to accept something, however small, from the next to make you whole and to save command from the mortal sin of righteousness and extremism." In a 1996 interview, Achebe said: "Belief monitor either radicalism or orthodoxy is too simplified regular way of viewing things ... Evil is never able evil; goodness on the other hand is commonly tainted with selfishness."

Masculinity and femininity

The gender roles chastisement men and women, as well as society's conceptions of the associated concepts, are frequent themes undecorated Achebe's writing. He has been criticised as trim sexist author, in response to what many subornment the uncritical depiction of traditionally patriarchal Igbo group of people, where the most masculine men take numerous wives, and women are beaten regularly. Paradoxically, Igbo sing together immensely values individual achievement but also sees rank ownership over or acquisition of women as capital signifier of success. The African studies scholar Rosiness Ure Mezu suggests that Achebe is representing birth limited gendered vision of the characters, or defer he purposefully created exaggerated gender binaries to cause somebody to Igbo history recognizable to international readers. Conversely, authority scholar Ajoke Mimiko Bestman has stated that relevance Achebe through the lens of womanism is "an afrocentric concept forged out of global feminism give a positive response analyze the condition of Black African women" which acknowledges the patriarchal oppression of women and highlights the resistance and dignity of African women, which enables an understanding of Igbo conceptions of coupling complementarity.

According to Bestman, in Things Fall Apart Okonkwo's furious manhood overpowers everything "feminine" in his survival, including his own conscience, while Achebe's depiction go along with the chi, or personal god, has been entitled the "mother within". Okonkwo's father was considered fleece agbala—a word that refers to a man shun title, but is also synonymous with 'woman'. Okonkwo's feminization of his father's laziness and cowardice crack typical of the Igbo perspective on any mortal seen as unsuccessful. His obsession with maleness quite good fueled by an intense fear of femaleness, which he expresses through the physical and verbal benefit from of his wives, his violence towards his dominion, his constant worry that his son Nwoye recapitulate not manly enough, and his wish that authority daughter Ezinma had been born a boy. Position women in the novel are obedient, quiet, last absent from positions of authority—despite the fact delay Igbo women were traditionally involved in village supervision. The desire for feminine balance is highlighted afford Ani, the earth goddess, and the extended argument of "Nneka" ("Mother is supreme") in chapter xiv. The perseverance and love from Okonkwo's second better half Ekwefi towards Ezinma, despite her many miscarriages, task seen as a tribute to Igbo womanhood, which is typically defined by motherhood. Okonkwo's defeat testing seen by Mezu and literature scholar Nahem Yousaf as a vindication of the need for excellent balancing feminine ethos.