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Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart

His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), is the book most widely read in African Literature. Achebe won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007.

Early Life and Education

Achebe was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in the Igbo village of Ogidi on 16 November 1930. He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition and an integral part of the community. Achebe's mother and sister told him many stories as a child, which he repeatedly requested. Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship to study medicine but changed his studies to English literature at University College (now the University of Ibadan). He attended the prestigious Government College funded by the colonial administration. The College was established in 1929 to educate Nigeria's future elite. It had rigorous academic standards and was vigorously elitist, accepting boys purely on the basis of ability.

The Language Question

The language of the school was English, not only to develop proficiency but also to provide a common tongue for pupils from different Nigerian language groups. Achebe described this later as being ordered to "put away their different mother tongues and communicate in the language of their colonisers." The rule was strictly enforced and Achebe recalls that his first punishment was for asking another boy to pass the soap in Igbo.

Readings

Achebe started to explore the school's "wonderful library". He read awesome classics but also tales of colonial adventures such as H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain (1887). Achebe later recalled that, as a reader, he "took sides with the white characters against the savages" and even developed a dislike for Africans. "The white man was good and reasonable and intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed against him were sinister and stupid, or, at the most, cunning. I hated their guts."

University and New Ideas

In 1948, in preparation for independence, Nigeria's first university opened. Known as University College (now the University of Ibadan, an associate college of the University of London). It was during his studies at Ibadan that Achebe began to become critical of European literature about Africa. After reading Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson (1939), he was so disturbed by the book's portrayal of its Nigerian characters as either savages or buffoons that he decided to become a writer. Achebe recognised his dislike for the African protagonist as a sign of the author's cultural ignorance.

First Job

While he meditated on his possible career paths, Achebe was visited by a friend who convinced him to apply for an English teaching position at the Merchants of Light school at Oba. It was a poor school with a crumbling infrastructure. As a teacher, he urged his students to read extensively and be original in their work. The students did not have access to the newspapers he had read as a student, so Achebe made his own available in the classroom. He taught in Oba for four months, then he left the school and moved to Lagos where he got a job at a radio station. The city of Lagos also made a significant impression on him. He revelled in the social and political activity around him and later drew upon his experiences when describing the city in his 1960 novel No Longer at Ease.

Writing Career

While in Lagos, Achebe started work on a novel. This was challenging since very little African fiction had been written in English. Achebe worked hard to develop his own style, even as he pioneered the creation of the Nigerian novel itself. Also in 1956, he was selected at the Staff School run by the BBC. His first trip to London was an opportunity to advance his technical production skills and to solicit feedback on his novel by some British novelists he met. Back in Nigeria, Achebe set to work revising and editing his novel (now titled Things Fall Apart). He cut away the second and third sections of the book, leaving only the first one. He also added some new parts and revised others.

Things Fall Apart

In 1958, Achebe sent his novel to a British agent. It was sent to several publishing houses; some rejected it immediately, claiming that fiction from African writers had no market potential. Finally, it reached the office of Heinemann, where an educational adviser, Donald MacRae, was consulted. He reported: "This is the best novel I have read since the war." The book was received well by the British press and received positive reviews. Initial reception in Nigeria was mixed. Some met it with scepticism and ridicule, others were more supportive. Things Fall Apart became one of the most important books in African literature. It has sold over 20 million copies around the world and was translated into 57 languages. Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka described it as "the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him." In the same year Things Fall Apart was published, Achebe was promoted at the NBS (radio network) and put in charge of the network's eastern region coverage. He moved to Enugu and began to work on his administrative duties. There he met a woman named Christiana Chinwe (Christie) whom he married in 1961. They had three children.

No Longer at Ease

In 1960, before marrying her, Achebe dedicated to Christie Okoli his second novel, No Longer at Ease, about a civil servant who is embroiled in the corruption of Lagos. The protagonist is Obi, grandson of Things Fall Apart's main character, Okonkwo (so the novel can be considered a kind of 'sequel'). Achebe writes about Obi's experiences in Lagos to reflect the challenges facing a new generation on the threshold of Nigerian independence. Obi is trapped between the expectations of his family, its clan, his home village, and larger society. He is crushed by these forces and finds himself imprisoned for bribery (corruzione). In 1962, Achebe again left Nigeria, this time as part of a Fellowship for Creative Artists awarded by UNESCO. He travelled to the United States and Brazil. He met with a number of writers from the US, including novelists Ralph Ellison and Arthur Miller. Once he returned to Nigeria, Achebe was promoted at the NBS to the position of Director of External Broadcasting. One of his first duties was to help create the Voice of Nigeria network (more independent network). In September 1964, he attended the Commonwealth Literature conference at the University of Leeds, presenting his essay "The Novelist as Teacher" (strongly didactic essay, centred on the writer's 'mission').

Arrow of God

Achebe's third book, Arrow of God, was published in 1964. Like its predecessors, it explores the intersections of Igbo tradition and European Christianity. Set in the village of Umuaro at the start of the 20th century...