WORLD-RENOWNED Nigerian novelist, poet and essayist, Chinua Achebe, is dead.
Reports reaching sharpedgenews.com say Achebe died on Thursday in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States, aged 82.
Until his death, he was a professor emeritus at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in the same country he relocated from his native Nigeria shortly after he was involved in a bad road accident on March 22, 1990 that left him wheelchair-bound ever since.
A statement from his family asked for privacy at the present time, saying Achebe was “one of the great literary voices of all time. He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him.”
Mr. Achebe made literary history with his 1958 best-seller Things Fall Apart, a sobering tale about Nigeria at the dawn of independence. Set in an Igbo village in Nigeria, it highlighted the clashes between colonialism and traditional culture. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies around the world, and was translated into 50 languages.
In that novel, Professor Achebe captures an Igbo village in south-east Nigeria that has just been exposed to newly arrived westerners who ultimately became colonizers.
A part of the novel describes a scene featuring Obierika, friend of the novel’s lead character Okonkwo, talking about the new visitors whom he described as “very clever”.
“The white man is very clever”, Obierika said in the book. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one.”
Equally gaining widespread attention was a paper he presented at a lecture in 1975, titled “Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, later published in 1977, which became controversial for his description of Joseph Conrad as “a thoroughgoing racist.”
Born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on 16 November 1930, he attended St Philips’ Central School at the age of six. He moved away from his family to Nekede, four kilometres from Owerri, the capital of Imo State, at the age of 12 and registered at the Central School there.
He attended Government College Umuahia for his secondary school education. He was a pioneer student of the University College, now University of Ibadan in 1948. He was first admitted to study medicine but changed to English, history and theology after his first year.
It was during his studies at Ibadan when Achebe began to grow critical of European literature about Africa. He eventually wrote his final papers in the University in 1953 and emerged with a second-class degree.
He would later join the Nigerian Broadcasting Service, in 1954, after a stint in teaching. It was during this period that he met his wife Christie Chinwe Okoli with whom he remained married for the next half century. The Achebe’s had 4 children, including a Boston-based medical doctor.
His latest book recounting personal and public experiences during the civil war, There was a Country, set-off a firestorm of debate among both Nigerian Intelligentsia and the general public for what was perceived as its heavily slanted portrayal of the war.
Others, too, thought it was beneath a statesman as Achebe to write in a manner that appeared to fan the embers of ethnic disunity.
But his supporters, mostly of his ethnic origin argued that his account of the war was as accurate as it was important in a situation where the issues that predicated the war in the first instance remained mostly neglected and unaddressed.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan office in Abuja reacted to the death of the respected writer Friday afternoon, saying that his courageous contributions will be missed by his fellow Nigerians.
“His truthful and fearless interventions in national affairs will be greatly missed at home in Nigeria because while others may have disagreed with his views, most Nigerians never doubted his immense patriotism and sincere commitment to the building of a greater, more united and prosperous nation that all Africans and the entire black race could be proud of.
The president said he “recalls that with maturity and global stature, Prof. Achebe fearlessly spoke the truth as he saw it and became, as he advanced in age, a much revered national icon and conscience of the nation who will be eternally honored for his contributions to national discourse as well as the immense fame and glory he brought to his fatherland.”