Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebewas a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apartwas considered his magnum opus, and is the most widely read book in modern African literature...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 November 1930
CityOgidi, Nigeria
CountryNigeria
men okonkwo doe
Beware Okonkwo!" she warned. "Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!
believe thinking perspective
I believe in the complexity of the human story, and that there's no way you can tell that story in one way and say, 'this is it.' Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing ... this is the way I think the world's stories should be told: from many different perspectives.
creativity fire sparks
Contradictions if well understood and managed can spark off the fires of invention. Orthodoxy whether of the right or of the left is the graveyard of creativity.
heart reality diversity
Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not.
thought-provoking giving headache
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
disease herbs
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
light years needs
The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
writing stories write-your-own
If you don't like someone's story, write your own. If you don't like what somebody says, say what it is you don't like.
men trouble
A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
writing thought-provoking stories
If you don't like someone's story, write your own.
literature weapons
My weapon is literature
tasks generations embrace
Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
people stories faces
It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.
witch-doctors pieces superstitions
You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors.