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
mother children pay
A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
school land people
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
mother teacher religious
My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five years to different parts of Igboland, spreading the gospel.
people stories world
People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.
men hands should
A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.
journey people leader
Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.
despair load
It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.
men lips doe
A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?
father boys doors
A boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet.
thought-provoking house ceilings
When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?
brother thought-provoking fool
He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
art thinking people
Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.
running writing tired
The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it. The writer who chooses the former soon runs out of energy and produces elegantly tired fiction.
doe chiefs
A chief does not hurry.