Chinua Achebe

1. Chinua Achebe Lisa Iwamoto Eng 409 March 29, 2005

2. 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

3. 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

4. “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 territory…a 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”

5. “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).

6. “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).