Chinua Achebe: Biography, poems, books, family, death

Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic, is widely recognised as the most influential character in contemporary African literature. Things Fall Apart (1958), his debut and magnum opus, is a seminal work in African literature and is still the most frequently studied, translated, and read African book. Although he vehemently denied the label, he is often referred to as the “founder of African literature.”

Table of Content hide 1Biography 2Career 3Chinua Achebe’s family 4Chinua Achebe poems 5Chinua Achebe books 5.1Children’s books 6Chinua Achebe death 7Chinua Achebe legacy 8Conclusion

Biography

Chinua Achebe was baptized Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on November 16, 1930. His father, Isaiah Okafor Achebe, was an evangelist and a teacher, while his mother, Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam, was the daughter of an Awka blacksmith, a church woman leader, and a vegetable farmer. His birthplace was Saint Simon’s Church, Nneobi, near the Igbo hamlet of Ogidi, in British Colonial Nigeria. Ogidi is what is now Anambra State.

In 1936, Achebe enrolled at St Philips’ Central School in Ogidi’s Akpakaogwe district. Despite his complaints, he spent a week in a religious class for small children, but when the school’s chaplain noticed his brilliance, he was soon moved to a higher class. One teacher recogniseed him as the student in his class with the best handwriting and reading skills.

Nigeria’s first university was established in 1948 in preparation for the country’s independence. It was an affiliate institution of the University of London, known as University College (now the University of Ibadan). Achebe was offered admission to study medicine and was admitted as the university’s inaugural intake. Achebe became skeptical of European writing on Africa during his studies, particularly Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He chose to become a writer after reading Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson, which depicted Nigerian characters as either savages or buffoons.

He dropped out of medicine to pursue English, history, and religion, a decision that cost him his scholarship and necessitated additional tuition payments. The government offered a bursary, and Achebe’s family contributed money—his older brother Augustine gave up a journey home from his employment as a civil servant so that Achebe could continue his studies.

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Career

In 1950, Achebe made his writing debut with Polar Undergraduate, an article for the University Herald, the university’s journal. It celebrated its students’ intellectual vitality with irony and fun. He followed up with other essays and letters regarding philosophy and academic freedom, some of which were published in The Bug, another campus publication. During the 1951–52 school year, he was the Herald’s editor.

That year, he published his debut short tale, In a Village Church, a humorous look at the Igbo synthesis of rural Nigerian life with Christian institutions and images. Other short stories he wrote while at Ibadan, such as The Old Order in Conflict with the New (1952) and Dead Men’s Path (1953), explore conflicts between tradition and modernity, to foster conversation and understanding on both sides.

Achebe began researching Christian history and African traditional religions when Professor Geoffrey Parrinder arrived at the institution to teach comparative religion.

Achebe received a second-class degree after his final exams in Ibadan in 1953. He returned to his village of Ogidi, rattled by not achieving the highest level, unsure how to go after graduation. While considering his options, Achebe was visited by a university acquaintance who persuaded him to seek a post as an English teacher at the Merchants of Light school in Oba. The school was built on “bad bush,” a section of land thought to be tainted by unfriendly spirits. It was a run-down institution with crumbling infrastructure and a meagre library.

He encouraged his students to read widely and be creative in their job as teachers. Because the pupils didn’t have access to the newspapers he read as a student, Achebe set up his own in the classroom. He spent four months in Oba as a teacher.

In 1954, he left the institution and came to Lagos to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), a colonial government-run radio network founded in 1933. He was assigned to the Talks Department, where he would write screenplays for delivery orally. This helped him learn the tiny differences between written and spoken language, which he used to construct realistic conversations later.

Lagos left an indelible mark on him. The metropolis, a massive conurbation, was teeming with recent migrants from rural areas. Achebe was enthralled by the social and political events around him and began writing a novel. This was difficult because very little African literature had been written in English, except Amos Tutuola’s Palm-Wine Drinkard and Cyprian Ekwensi’s People of the City. Queen Elizabeth II’s 1956 visit to Nigeria raised concerns about colonialism and politics, and it was a significant moment for Achebe.

Achebe was also chosen to attend the British Broadcasting Corporation’s staff training course in 1956. (BBC). His first journey outside of Nigeria allowed him to concentrate on his technical production skills and get comments on his novel (which was later split into two books). He met an author called Gilbert Phelps in London and offered the manuscript to him. Phelps was ecstatic and asked Achebe if he might show the manuscript to his editor and publishers. Achebe turned it down, saying it needed more development.

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Back in Nigeria, Achebe began revising and editing his novel, which he titled Things Fall Apart after a line from W. B. Yeats’ poem The Second Coming. He removed the book’s second and third sections, leaving only the story of Okonkwo, a yam farmer who lives during Nigeria’s colonization and struggles with his father’s debtor legacy. He rearranged the prose, added sections, and polished certain parts.

In 1957, he mailed his single copy of his handwritten manuscript to a London manuscript typing firm that he had seen advertised in The Spectator (along with the £22 cost). When he didn’t hear back from the typing service, he requested his boss at the NBS, Angela Beattie, to visit him while she was in London.

She did, and she asked passionately to know why the manuscript was being overlooked in the office corner. Achebe received a typed copy from the corporation right away. Beattie’s involvement was critical in allowing him to continue writing. He later remarked that if the work had been lost, he would have been so discouraged that he would have given up entirely.

Gilbert Phelps recommended Achebe’s novel to an agent in London, so Achebe sent it there. It was forwarded to numerous publishing houses, some of whom instantly rejected it, arguing that African writers’ fiction had little market potential. After reading the manuscript, Heinemann executives debated whether or not to publish the book. Donald MacRae, an educational adviser, read the book and told the firm, That it was the best novel he had read since the war.

On June 17, 1958, Heinemann released 2,000 hardcover copies of Things Fall Apart. The publisher did not touch a word of it in preparation for distribution, according to Alan Hill, who worked for the company at the time.

The British press favourably welcomed the book, with critic Walter Allen and author Angus Wilson giving it excellent reviews. The Times Literary Supplement noted three days after release that the book “really succeeds in showing tribal life from the inside.” “A superb work,” according to The Observer, and “Mr. Achebe’s writing is a model for aspirants,” according to Time and Tide.

After the publication of Things Fall Apart in 1958, Achebe was elevated to the NBS and assigned to the network’s Eastern area coverage. Christiana Chinwe (Christie) Okoli, a woman who grew up in the neighborhood and joined the NBS staff when he came, began dating Achebe that same year. The couple relocated to Enugu and he started working on his administrative responsibilities.

In 1960, Achebe released No Longer at Ease, a novel about a civil worker named Obi, who gets engaged in Lagos’ corruption and is the grandson of Things Fall Apart’s main character.

In response to criticisms of African writing from international authors, Achebe published an essay titled Where Angels Fear to Tread in the December 1962 issue of Nigeria Magazine. The hostile critic (completely negative), the astounded critic (completely positive), and the conscious critic were all defined in the essay (who seeks a balance).

He slammed individuals who criticized African writers from the outside, claiming that “no man can understand another whose language he does not know” (note “language” here refers to a person’s complete worldview, not just words). In September 1964, he presented his essay The Novelist as Teacher at the Commonwealth Literature Conference at the University of Leeds.

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Chinua Achebe’s family

On September 10, 1961, Chinua Achebe and Christie married in the Chapel of Resurrection on the campus of the University of Ibadan. On July 11, 1962, their first child, a daughter named Chinelo, was born. Ikechukwu was born on December 3, 1964, and Chidi was born on May 24, 1967. When the children started school in Lagos, their parents were concerned about the school’s worldview, particularly in terms of race, as reflected by largely white teachers and literature that gave a prejudiced perspective of African life.

Chinua Achebe poems

Chinua Achebe wrote a few poems. Some of which are:

• Achebe, Chinua (1951-1952), There was a Young Man in our Hall.
• Beware Soul Brother and other poems, 1972.
• Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems, 1973.
• The Old Man and the Census, 1974.
• Don’t Let Him Die: An Anthology of Memorial Poems for Christopher Okigbo, 1978.
• Collected Poems, (2004).

Chinua Achebe books

Chinua Achebe wrote five novels. These novels received positive reviews worldwide, and his books were a must, not only in Nigeria but also internationally. Heinemann, a publishing firm in the UK, published all his books. The books are:

• Things Fall Apart (1958).
• No Longer At Ease (1964).
• Arrow of God (1964).
• Man of People (1966).
• Anthills of the Savannah (1987).

Children’s books

• Chike and the River (1966)
• How the Leopard Got His Claws (1972).
• The Drum (1977).
• The Flute (1977).

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Chinua Achebe death

Achebe died on March 21, 2013, in Boston, Massachusetts, following a brief illness. According to an unnamed family member, he was hospitalised in the city after becoming ill. “One of Africa’s most widely read authors and one of the continent’s towering men of letters,” according to his obituary in the New York Times. According to the BBC, he was revered throughout the world for his representation of life in Africa. He was laid to rest in Ogidi, his hometown.

Chinua Achebe legacy

Chinua Achebe is often considered the founding father of contemporary African literature. And, despite having numerous African forerunners, like Sol Plaatje, J.C. Jordan, Mofolo, Shaaban Robert, René Maran, and Paul Hozaume, all of whom wrote in African languages, and being predated in Nigeria by Amos Tutuola, Chinua Achebe remains Africa’s best writer. In 2008, the world commemorated the 50th anniversary of his debut work, Things Fall Apart, which he published at the early age of 28.

Conclusion

Chinua Achebe was a bright and intelligent writer whose works paved the way for many younger writers all over the world. Writers like Chimamanda Adichie were inspired to become great writers while reading his books.

Also, he is an inspiration to many young people to follow their dreams and passion squarely, no matter how hard it may be.

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