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Authors: Chinua Achebe
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clique that had created the Action Group. The Northern Peoples
Congress of the Sardaunians was supposed to be a national party, yet it refused to
change its name from Northern to Nigerian Peoples Congress, even for the sake of appearances.
It refused right up to the end of the civilian regime.
The prime minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who had been built up into
a great statesman by the Western world, did nothing to save his country from impending
chaos. The British made certain on the eve of their departure that power went to that
conservative element in the country that had played no real part in the struggle for
independence. This was the situation in which I wrote my novel
A Man of the People
.
Nigerian artists responded to these events in a variety of ways. The irrepressible
Wole Soyinka put on the stage a devastating satire,
Before the Blackout
, which played to packed houses night after night in Ibadan. The popular traveling
theater of Hubert Ogunde and his many wives began to stage a play clearly directed
against the crooked premier of Western Nigeria. The theater group was declared an
unlawful society and banned in Western Nigeria. Things were coming to a head in that
region. Violence erupted after an unbelievable election swindle, as a result of the
anger and frustration of Western Nigerians. It was in these circumstances that Wole
Soyinka was charged with holding up the Ibadan radio station and removing the premier’s
taped speech!
Creative writers in independent Nigeria found themselves with a new, terrifying problem
on their hands: They found that the independence their country was supposed to have
won was totally without content. In the words of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria was given
her freedom “on a platter of gold.” We should have known that freedom should be won,
not given on a plate. Like the head of John the Baptist, this gift to Nigeria proved
most unlucky.
The Role of the Writer in Africa
What then were we to do as writers? What was our role in our new country? How were
we to think about the use of our talents? I can say that when a number of us decided
that we would be writers, we had not thought through these questions very clearly.
In fact, we did not have a clue what we were up against. What I can say is that it
was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue.
A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves
and our continent, and to recast them through stories—prose, poetry, essays, and books
for our children. That was my overall goal.
When a number of us decided to pick up the pen and make writing a career there was
no African literature as we know it today. There were of course our great oral tradition—the
epics of the Malinke, the Bamana, and the Fulani—the narratives of Olaudah Equaino,
works by D. A. Fagunwa and Muhammadu Bello, and novels by Pita Nwana, Amos Tutuola,
and Cyprian Ekwensi.
Across the African continent, literary aficionados could savor the works of Egyptian,
Nubian, and Carthaginian antiquity; Amharic and Tigrigna writings from Ethiopia and
Eritrea; and the magnificent poetry and creation myths of Somalia. There was more—the
breathtakingly beautiful Swahili poetry of East and Central Africa, and the chronicles,
legends, and fables of the Ashanti, Dogon, Hutu, Kalanga, Mandingo, Ndebele, Ovambo,
Shona, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Tutsi, Venda, Wolof, Xhosa, and Zulu.
Olive Schreiner’s nineteenth-century classic
Story of an African Farm
and works by Samuel Mqhayi and Thomas Mofolo, Alan Paton, Camara Laye, Mongo Beti,
Peter Abrahams, and Ferdinand Oyono, all preceded our time. Still, the numbers were
not sufficient. 1
And so I had no idea when I was writing
Things Fall Apart
whether it would even be accepted or published. All of this was new—there was nothing
by which I could gauge how it was
Congress of the Sardaunians was supposed to be a national party, yet it refused to
change its name from Northern to Nigerian Peoples Congress, even for the sake of appearances.
It refused right up to the end of the civilian regime.
The prime minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who had been built up into
a great statesman by the Western world, did nothing to save his country from impending
chaos. The British made certain on the eve of their departure that power went to that
conservative element in the country that had played no real part in the struggle for
independence. This was the situation in which I wrote my novel
A Man of the People
.
Nigerian artists responded to these events in a variety of ways. The irrepressible
Wole Soyinka put on the stage a devastating satire,
Before the Blackout
, which played to packed houses night after night in Ibadan. The popular traveling
theater of Hubert Ogunde and his many wives began to stage a play clearly directed
against the crooked premier of Western Nigeria. The theater group was declared an
unlawful society and banned in Western Nigeria. Things were coming to a head in that
region. Violence erupted after an unbelievable election swindle, as a result of the
anger and frustration of Western Nigerians. It was in these circumstances that Wole
Soyinka was charged with holding up the Ibadan radio station and removing the premier’s
taped speech!
Creative writers in independent Nigeria found themselves with a new, terrifying problem
on their hands: They found that the independence their country was supposed to have
won was totally without content. In the words of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria was given
her freedom “on a platter of gold.” We should have known that freedom should be won,
not given on a plate. Like the head of John the Baptist, this gift to Nigeria proved
most unlucky.
The Role of the Writer in Africa
What then were we to do as writers? What was our role in our new country? How were
we to think about the use of our talents? I can say that when a number of us decided
that we would be writers, we had not thought through these questions very clearly.
In fact, we did not have a clue what we were up against. What I can say is that it
was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue.
A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves
and our continent, and to recast them through stories—prose, poetry, essays, and books
for our children. That was my overall goal.
When a number of us decided to pick up the pen and make writing a career there was
no African literature as we know it today. There were of course our great oral tradition—the
epics of the Malinke, the Bamana, and the Fulani—the narratives of Olaudah Equaino,
works by D. A. Fagunwa and Muhammadu Bello, and novels by Pita Nwana, Amos Tutuola,
and Cyprian Ekwensi.
Across the African continent, literary aficionados could savor the works of Egyptian,
Nubian, and Carthaginian antiquity; Amharic and Tigrigna writings from Ethiopia and
Eritrea; and the magnificent poetry and creation myths of Somalia. There was more—the
breathtakingly beautiful Swahili poetry of East and Central Africa, and the chronicles,
legends, and fables of the Ashanti, Dogon, Hutu, Kalanga, Mandingo, Ndebele, Ovambo,
Shona, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Tutsi, Venda, Wolof, Xhosa, and Zulu.
Olive Schreiner’s nineteenth-century classic
Story of an African Farm
and works by Samuel Mqhayi and Thomas Mofolo, Alan Paton, Camara Laye, Mongo Beti,
Peter Abrahams, and Ferdinand Oyono, all preceded our time. Still, the numbers were
not sufficient. 1
And so I had no idea when I was writing
Things Fall Apart
whether it would even be accepted or published. All of this was new—there was nothing
by which I could gauge how it was
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