Chinua Achebe

1
Chinua Achebe

• Lisa Iwamoto
• Eng 409
• March 29, 2005

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Timeline Albert Chinualumogu Achebe

• Born on Nov. 16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria
• Parents raised him with Igbo traditions, but were
  devout Protestants
• 1944-1947 attended Government College in
  Umuahia
• 1948-1953 attended University College in Ibadan
• Rejected his christened name for Prince Albert
  (husband of Queen Victoria)
• 1953 earned B.A. at London University
• 1958 Things Fall Apart his first, best known
  novel (translated into 50 languages, sold 3
  million copies)
• Sept. 10, 1961 married Christie Chinwe Okoli
  (has 4 children)
• 1964 - Arrow of God (won New Statesmen-Jock
  Campbell Award)
• 1967 appointed Senior Research Fellow at Univ.
  of Nigeria, Nsukka and began lecturing abroad
• Univ. of Mass., Amherst, Univ. of Conn.,
  Dartmouth Univ., Bard Univ.
• 1975 The African Writer and the English
  Language
• 1981 Headed English dept. and Univ. of Nigeria
• 1990 paralyzed from waist down in a serious car
  accident

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Albert Chinualumogu Achebe

• Has received numerous awards and honors from
  around the world
• Finalist for esteemed British Booker Award
• Recipient of the highest award for intellectual
  achievement in Nigeria

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The African Writer and the English Language

• Major problem defining African literature
• you cannot cram African literature into a
  small, near definition. I do not see African
  literature as one unit but as a group of
  associated units in fact the sum of all the
  national and ethnic literatures of Africa (428).
• National literature one that takes the whole
  nation for its province and has a realized or
  potential audience throughout its territorya
  literature that is written in the national
  language (428).
• Ethnic literature one which is available only
  to one ethnic group within the nation (428).
• eg. The national literature of Nigeria is the
  literature written in English and the ethnic
  literature are Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Efik, Edo,
  etc.
• No defined group should be excluded from African
  literature

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The African Writer and the English Language

• Why is the national literature of Nigeria and
  many other African countries is, or will be,
  written in English?
• these nations were created in the first place
  by the intervention of the British which, I
  hasten to add, is not saying that the peoples
  comprising these nations were invented by the
  British (429).
• What impact has colonialism had on Africa?
• Colonialism in Africa disrupted many things, but
  it did create big political units where there
  were small, scattered ones before (429).
• Unified countries of Africa
• Some ethnic groups were divided into 2 or 3
  powers
• But on the whole it did bring together many
  peoples that had hitherto gone their several
  ways. And it gave them a language with which to
  talk to one another. If it failed to give them a
  song, it at least gave them a tongue, for
  sighing (429).

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The African Writer and the English Language

• There is certainly a great advantage to writing
  in a world language (430).
• Excellent writers and their work will be closed
  to the rest of the world
• Africans can learn English well enough to be able
  to use it effectively in creative writing
• But not well enough to use it like a native
  speaker (I hope not)
• The price a world language must be prepared to
  pay is submission to many different kinds of use
  (432).
• People can use a second language as effectively
  as their first
• Many are happier with first, but majority are not
  writers
• Eg. Olaudah Equiano
• Should Africans write in English?
• Yes, there is no other way.
• It will have to be a new English, still in full
  communion with its ancestral home but altered to
  suit its new African surroundings (433).