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
writing slave slave-trade
When Rimbaud became a slave trader, he stopped writing poetry.
slave trading
Poetry and slave trading cannot be bedfellows. That's where I stand.
home nigeria
I have found that I work best when I am at home in Nigeria. But one learns to work in other places.
writing night people
I am not an early-morning person; I don't like to get out of bed, and so I don't begin writing at five A.M., though some people, I hear, do. I write once my day has started. And I can work late into the night, also.
writing primitive pens
I'm very primitive; I write with a pen.
people advice done
Once you have really done all you can, then you can show it to people. But I find this is increasingly not the case with the younger people. They do a first draft and want somebody to finish it off for them with good advice.
writing language novel
If someone said, I want to translate your novel into Igbo, I would say, Go ahead. But when I write in the Igbo language, I write my own dialect. I write some poetry in that dialect.
real tragedy goes-on
Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly for ever.
okonkwo fire ashes
Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
war stories sound
Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle...
thinking citizens
I think writers are not only writers, they are also citizens.
writing quality crafts
Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
confused ideas done
I have so many ideas; there are so many things that need to be done, so many possibilities, you know; one is terribly excited, but at the same time, you're almost confused, because you don't know where to begin.
men juicy mouths
[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?