Chinua Achebe, Famous Nigerian Author of ' Things Fall Apart ' Has Died. (777 hits)
Shock as renowned author, Chinua Achebe, dies at 82 Achebe--A giant eagle flew away from the forest of African literature on Thursday as iconic thinker, writer, scholar, activist and statesman, Prof. Chinua Achebe, passed away. Although he was 82, his passage has spread shock, grief and anxiety about Africa’s destiny across the globe. MSince about a week ago, anxiety had hovered above the health of the author of all-time greatest Things Fall Apart, whose story arguably best interprets the intricacies of the continent’s burden and contradictions.
While it was later learnt that he had been ill and hospitalised in an undisclosed medical facility in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, reports said he died Thursday night, a development that his family has confirmed. The legendary writer, who had lived in the US since 1990, following an accident he had, in which he sustained a spinal cord injury, was, until his death, the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown.
Despite the distance, Achebe had his heart in his fatherland as he regularly kept a close and critical eye on goings-on, especially on the political front. In some of his recent reactions, he had, last year, condemned the Federal Government’s decision to remove subsidy on petroleum products. Also, because he believed there was no progress to celebrate yet, he twice rejected the national honour that the Goodluck Jonathan government extended to him. But he stirred what can now be termed his final controversy late last year when he published his Biafra war memoir, entitled, There was a Country.
Although the book is highly revealing in most parts and speaks to the future as much as it does to the past, Achebe’s stance that the late renowned politician, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, betrayed and dehumanised the Igbo during the war drew the anger of many followers of history, especially from the South-West, where Awo still remains an idol, based on his immense contributions to the development of the area, especially when he was the Premier of the defunct Western Region.
His most famous masterpiece, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, was set in an Igbo village in Nigeria, and highlighted the clashes between colonialism and traditional culture. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies around the world, and was translated into 50. While Achebe’s departure may provide some people an opportunity to re-read There was a Country with a dispassionate mind, other stakeholders, including the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who has described Achebe’s death as devastating, had opined that Achebe was not extravagant in his account of happenings during the Biafran war.
In his reaction to the news of Achebe’s death, an obviously shocked Soyinka reportedly told a radio station, Cool FM, that he could not yet say much as at Friday. But he noted that the passage was devastating. Followers of the relationship between the two, and the dreams they shared for the country, would believe that what could be devastating to Soyinka is not just his compatriot’s death, but also the fact that their long-drawn battle to see a sane country did not come to reality in Achebe’s lifetime.
Now over-74-year-old Soyinka had, in a poetic tribute to Achebe, when the latter clocked 70, expressed frustration that they both appeared to have fought in futility as forces that hold the country down had not relented. While the dream of Achebe, and those of other crtics and activists might not have been realised about Nigeria and Africa, his calling as a writer is an normous and intimidating success.
His flagship book remains Things Fall Apart, which, since 1958 when it was publsihed, has continued to be relevant and amass sales and acclaim globally. When the book clocked 50 in 2008, it was celebrated for months in different parts of the world. Over 15 million copies of the novel are officially said to have been sold, while observers believe more than this number may also have exchanged hands via piracy.
Although Achebe’s other novels that include Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease are also acclaimed, many critics have argued that the way Achebe was able to capture the tragedy of colonialism in Africa, through a tale that simultaneously and impeccably tells the story of the pre-colonial Igbo people, in an inspiring and believable manner, made him one of the greatest writers the world has produced.
...“It is perhaps difficult for outsiders of that intimate circle to appreciate this sense of depletion, but we take consolation in the young generation of writers to whom the baton has been passed, those who have already creatively ensured that there is no break in the continuum of the literary vocation.
“We need to stress this at a critical time of Nigerian history, where the forces of darkness appear to overshadow the illumination of existence that literature represents. “These are forces that arrogantly pride themselves implacable and brutal enemies of what Chinua and his pen represented, not merely for the African continent, but for humanity."...
