He showed us the real, not imagined, Africa
Chinua Achebe may not have liked being labelled the ‘Father of African literature', but it was he who firmly placed African literature on the world map. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), a magnum opus that describes the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community of Nigeria during the late 1890s, presented to the world a rare and quintessentially African perspective. Up until then, the world had only seen ‘the African' through the eyes of the ‘White Man' of the kind best depicted by Joseph Conrad in his novella, Heart of Darkness (1899). The African was always, to use Conrad's term, a “rudimentary soul” — a brute and a savage, entirely incapable of taking care of himself and therefore, forever dependent on the charity of others, of the civilised world. But Achebe, for the first time ever, challenged that Euro-centric view of Africa and presented a genuine, first-hand account of the continent. His wildly successful first novel was followed by a sequel, No longer at Ease (1960), and then by Arrow of God (1964) which was based on a similar subject. Even his two later novels, A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987) were described as ‘spiritual descendants' of his first. But this list would be incomplete without a mention of the lecture he delivered in 1975 in Amherst, Massachusetts, during which he ripped apart Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which reinforced the worst of African stereotypes, for being “bloody racist”.
But it was not only on the global stage that Achebe was revered as a trail-blazer; he was very popular at home too. So much so that Things Fall Apart was made compulsory reading at many schools — not merely for its literary value but also for the kind of self-respect and pride in one's heritage that it sought to evoke. As Kenyan writer Simon Gikandi put it, Achebe’s works inspired “a dignified sense of African culture”. Achebe attributed his phenomenal success within his own society to the fact that “this was the first time we were seeing ourselves, as autonomous individuals, rather than half-people”. Interestingly, for all his anti-colonial stance, Achebe wrote in English and occasionally came under criticism for writing in the coloniser's language. But Achebe consistently defended his choice, for it allowed him to reach out to a much larger audience than he would otherwise have had access to. Achebe's death earlier this month is no doubt a big loss to the African consciousness, but his legacy will continue to live through the works of the many Africans that he has inspired to write about their homeland. These include the likes of Caine prize winner Helon Habila — Waiting for an Angel (2004) and Measuring Time (2007)) — as well as Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation), and of course Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of the critically acclaimed novels, Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006).
