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
real mean self
To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!
gun lips faces
She pouted her lips like a gun in my face.
life men transition
A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.
children people world
Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest. That's not the way my people rear their children. They let them experience the world as it is.
purpose use language
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, be it from mere incompetence or worse, from malice, horrors can descend again on mankind.
fighting earth grime
He who fights for a ne'er-do-well has nothing to show for it except a head covered in earth and grime.
country differences trouble
I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of factions in the country because of difference in religion. These are things we should put behind us.
should-have numbers church
Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church.
age growing knew larger life people seemed
I don't care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
chaotic heart ideas liked love loved poetry seemed wild wrote
I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.
expect fellow full life lives next observe
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.