<p>“Okonkwo was well-known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.” From the opening line of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, the reader is drawn deep into Africa. Who is this Okonkwo that everybody knows? Where are these nine villages?</p>.<p>When Chinua Achebe writes, people sit up and read, and get immersed in his world. It is not just the words that astonish, it is the profound experience of breaking out of the psychological shackles of colonial subjugation and giving voice to an entire continent. Although fiction is fictitious, it can be true or false in its disinterestedness, its intention, and its integrity. It was this belief in the moral power of the written word that was integral to Achebe’s vision for African literature.</p>.<p>In his essay, The African Writer and the English Language, Achebe recounts a myth widely held by his people -- the Igbo -- in Nigeria: Men once resolved to ask Chuku, the supreme god, for a wish: that the dead be brought back to life. They chose a dog to be their messenger. But the dog was late, and a frog who had been eavesdropping reached Chuku first. To punish man, the frog changed the plea and told Chuku that after men die, they did not want to return to the world. Chuku granted the wish. When the dog arrived with the true wish, Chuku refused to change his mind. Men can thus be reborn, but only in a different form.</p>.<p>Achebe writes: “It is as though the ancestors who made language and knew from what bestiality its use rescued them are saying to us: beware of interfering with its purpose! For when language is seriously interfered with, when it is disjoined from truth…horrors can descend again on humankind.” The myth holds another lesson: the danger in relying on someone else to speak for you, instead of you speaking with your own voice.</p>.<p>At 18, Achebe enrolled at University College, London, with a scholarship to study medicine. Soon, he changed the subject to English literature, losing the scholarship as a result. While studying English literature and reading colonial narratives -- Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson -- Achebe decided to challenge the portrayal of Africa; and critique the ways in which literature was complicit in promoting negative stereotypes of colonised and enslaved peoples. The intimate connection -- even indivisibility -- between literature, language, history, and authenticity is crucial to understanding Achebe’s prose. Though he chose to write in English, his writing is enriched by Nigerian Pidgin, and interspersed with Igbo verbs and proverbs, thus celebrating his people and his homeland.</p>.<p>Things Fall Apart (TFA), Achebe’s first novel and masterpiece published in 1958, was one of the first works of fiction to present African village life from an African perspective, and thus, Achebe began the literary reclamation of his country’s history from generations of colonial writers.</p>.<p>TFA has been translated into 60 languages and has sold about 20 million copies. Set in the 19th century, it is a poignant story of Okonkwo, the protagonist, the proud leader of his village, and his struggles with British imperialism that arrives in his village, Umuofia, through Christian missionaries. The book had a global impact, influencing a myriad of writers, including Edward Said, who was to later write Orientalism, critiquing the representation of Asia in a stereotyped way, embodying a colonial attitude.</p>.<p>Achebe wrote two sequels to his pathbreaking TFA: No longer at ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964), forming his ‘African Trilogy’, which traces the fortunes of Okonkwo’s descendants across Nigeria’s modern history, charting the fate of Nigeria itself, after its independence in 1960.</p>.<p>Achebe created a language of literature that many African writers -- notably Ben Okri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- came to later write in. He infused the English language with nuances that are uniquely Igbo, and unmistakably African. Achebe’s fiction draws on the oral tradition of the Igbo people. He incorporates folk tales into his stories, elucidating community values in both the content and the form of the storytelling. For instance, the tale about the Earth and Sky in TFA emphasises the interdependence of the masculine and the feminine. Although Okonkwo’s son Nwoye enjoys hearing his mother tell the tale, Okonkwo’s dislike for it is evidence of his shortcoming.</p>.<p>Read TFA, a book that resonates with our own colonial experience. Achebe faced two choices: turn away from the colonial experience, or conquer it and craft a narrative of autonomy and self-assurance. Achebe, the founding father of African literature, never shied away from depicting the racism and unconscionable exploitation of Africa under imperialism. It is for this reason he is one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, and why he did not win the Nobel Prize.</p>
<p>“Okonkwo was well-known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.” From the opening line of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, the reader is drawn deep into Africa. Who is this Okonkwo that everybody knows? Where are these nine villages?</p>.<p>When Chinua Achebe writes, people sit up and read, and get immersed in his world. It is not just the words that astonish, it is the profound experience of breaking out of the psychological shackles of colonial subjugation and giving voice to an entire continent. Although fiction is fictitious, it can be true or false in its disinterestedness, its intention, and its integrity. It was this belief in the moral power of the written word that was integral to Achebe’s vision for African literature.</p>.<p>In his essay, The African Writer and the English Language, Achebe recounts a myth widely held by his people -- the Igbo -- in Nigeria: Men once resolved to ask Chuku, the supreme god, for a wish: that the dead be brought back to life. They chose a dog to be their messenger. But the dog was late, and a frog who had been eavesdropping reached Chuku first. To punish man, the frog changed the plea and told Chuku that after men die, they did not want to return to the world. Chuku granted the wish. When the dog arrived with the true wish, Chuku refused to change his mind. Men can thus be reborn, but only in a different form.</p>.<p>Achebe writes: “It is as though the ancestors who made language and knew from what bestiality its use rescued them are saying to us: beware of interfering with its purpose! For when language is seriously interfered with, when it is disjoined from truth…horrors can descend again on humankind.” The myth holds another lesson: the danger in relying on someone else to speak for you, instead of you speaking with your own voice.</p>.<p>At 18, Achebe enrolled at University College, London, with a scholarship to study medicine. Soon, he changed the subject to English literature, losing the scholarship as a result. While studying English literature and reading colonial narratives -- Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson -- Achebe decided to challenge the portrayal of Africa; and critique the ways in which literature was complicit in promoting negative stereotypes of colonised and enslaved peoples. The intimate connection -- even indivisibility -- between literature, language, history, and authenticity is crucial to understanding Achebe’s prose. Though he chose to write in English, his writing is enriched by Nigerian Pidgin, and interspersed with Igbo verbs and proverbs, thus celebrating his people and his homeland.</p>.<p>Things Fall Apart (TFA), Achebe’s first novel and masterpiece published in 1958, was one of the first works of fiction to present African village life from an African perspective, and thus, Achebe began the literary reclamation of his country’s history from generations of colonial writers.</p>.<p>TFA has been translated into 60 languages and has sold about 20 million copies. Set in the 19th century, it is a poignant story of Okonkwo, the protagonist, the proud leader of his village, and his struggles with British imperialism that arrives in his village, Umuofia, through Christian missionaries. The book had a global impact, influencing a myriad of writers, including Edward Said, who was to later write Orientalism, critiquing the representation of Asia in a stereotyped way, embodying a colonial attitude.</p>.<p>Achebe wrote two sequels to his pathbreaking TFA: No longer at ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964), forming his ‘African Trilogy’, which traces the fortunes of Okonkwo’s descendants across Nigeria’s modern history, charting the fate of Nigeria itself, after its independence in 1960.</p>.<p>Achebe created a language of literature that many African writers -- notably Ben Okri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- came to later write in. He infused the English language with nuances that are uniquely Igbo, and unmistakably African. Achebe’s fiction draws on the oral tradition of the Igbo people. He incorporates folk tales into his stories, elucidating community values in both the content and the form of the storytelling. For instance, the tale about the Earth and Sky in TFA emphasises the interdependence of the masculine and the feminine. Although Okonkwo’s son Nwoye enjoys hearing his mother tell the tale, Okonkwo’s dislike for it is evidence of his shortcoming.</p>.<p>Read TFA, a book that resonates with our own colonial experience. Achebe faced two choices: turn away from the colonial experience, or conquer it and craft a narrative of autonomy and self-assurance. Achebe, the founding father of African literature, never shied away from depicting the racism and unconscionable exploitation of Africa under imperialism. It is for this reason he is one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, and why he did not win the Nobel Prize.</p>