Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebewas a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apartwas considered his magnum opus, and is the most widely read book in modern African literature...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 November 1930
CityOgidi, Nigeria
CountryNigeria
commitment artist political
There is something about important stories that is not just the message, but also the way that message is conveyed, the arrangement of the words, the felicity of the language. So it's really a balance between your commitment, whether it's political or economic or whatever, and your craft as an artist.
trouble failure-of-leadership nigeria
The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership,
eagles wings kites
Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
leadership healthy democracy
A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
important world rooms
Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.
leaving world today
One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems - where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require? Will the doctors, who are leaving in droves, coming to America, going to everywhere in the world - Saudi Arabia - how many of them will be there? The universities have almost completely lost their faculties and are hardly ever in session, shut down for one reason or another.
good-enough enough
I don't want to be the one to tell somebody, You will not make it, even though I know that the majority of those who come to me with their manuscripts are not really good enough.
character impossible good-and-bad
Actually, I identify with all my characters, good and bad. I have to do that in order to make them genuine. I have to understand them even if I don't approve of them. Not completely - it's impossible; complete identification is, in fact, not desirable.
thinking
Just think of the work you've set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
moving men reflection
There is a certain increase in the importance I assign to women in getting us out of the mess that we are in, which is a reflection of the role of women in my traditional culture - that they do not interfere in politics until men really make such a mess that the society is unable to go backward or forward. Then women will move in.
moving thinking perspective
If you're rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world's stories should be told - from many different perspectives.
moving character moments
We live in a sea of general ideas, so that's not a novel, since there are so many general ideas. But the moment a particular idea is linked to a character, it's like an engine moves it. Then you have a novel underway.
writing language elsewhere
Unless I'm writing in the Igbo language, I use a language developed elsewhere, which is English. That affects the way I write. It even affects to some extent the stories I write.
writing slave slave-trade
When Rimbaud became a slave trader, he stopped writing poetry.