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Achebe wins global literature prize
By Uduma Kalu
NIGERIA'S literary icon, Prof. Chinua Achebe, was yesterday morning named winner of the 2007 Man Booker International Prize.
Achebe, who was called "the father of modern African Literature by one of the judges, celebrated writer Nadine Gordimer, the second winner of the prize.
About N15million (?60,000) Man Booker International Prize is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It was first awarded to the Albanian writer Ismail Kadar? in 2005.
Achebe defeated a list of top contenders Britain's Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, as well as Ireland's John Banville, and two Americans Philip Roth and Don DeLillo.
The others were three Canadians: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje, and the dissident Israeli Amos Oz. Achebe is probably best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart, written in 1958 and Anthills of the Savannah, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 1987. Things Fall Apart will be officially 50 next year.
The prize's three-judge panel including Gordimer, a South African, honoured Achebe for inaugurating the modern African novel, citing the many writers inspired by his depiction of how colonialism influenced culture and civilisation on the continent.
The award marked the second honour bestowed on a Nigerian novelist in a week. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction on June 6, receiving ?30,000 for `Half of a Yellow Sun, her haunting look at the defunct Biafra's struggle in the late 1960s to break away from Nigeria.
Achebe who is the Charles P Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, Annandale, New York State, told the organisers immediately after hearing of his winning. "It was 50 years ago this year that I began writing my first novel, Things Fall Apart. It was wonder to hear that my peers have looked at the body of work I have put together in the last 50 years and judged it deserving of this important recognition. I am grateful."
Adichie in her reaction said of Achebe: "He is a remarkable man. The writer and the man. He's what I think writers should be."
Achebe's conviction is shown by his refusal for many years to allow his novels to be translated into Igbo, which he still considers a bastardised missionary version of authentic village dialects. However, Things Fall Apart has been translated into 50 other languages and sold 10million copies.
His other most influential work - discussed in classrooms worldwide - is the essay: 'An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness' (1975), which accuses Conrad of dehumanising Africans and rendering their continent as "a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognisable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril".
Achebe was once asked which authors had told the story of Africa well. Hundreds, he said, "including many we don't normally talk about and regard as literature - the oral tradition", the village storytellers who had been active long before colonisers introduced pen and paper. "Humanity," he said, "will always attempt to create a story."
The Man Booker International Prize is unique in the world of literature in that it can be won by an author of any nationality, providing that his or her work is available in English language. An author can only win the award once. It is also different and distinct from the Man Booker Prize in that it is for a body of work.
One of the panel's members, Elaine Showalter remarked:
"In Things Fall Apart and his other fiction set in Nigeria, Chinua Achebe inaugurated the modern African novel. He also illuminated the path for writers around the world seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies. We honour his literary example and achievements."
Gordimer, on her part, said: "Chinua Achebe's early work made him the father of modern African literature as an integral part of world literature. He has gone on to achieve what one of his characters brilliantly defines as the writer's purpose: 'a new-found utterance' for the capture of life's complexity. This fiction is an original synthesis of the psychological novel, the Joycean Stream of Consciousness, the post-modern breaking of sequence - thereby out-dating any prescriptivity. A joy and an illumination to read."
The third panel member Colm T?ibin was no less effusive in praises. He said: "Chinua Achebe has been one of my heroes since I read his book Things Fall Apart. This book manages to capture an essential moment in the colonial drama; it dramatises momentous change with clarity, sympathy and astonishing fluency and ease. His other books, especially A Man of the People and No Longer At Ease have worked with a mixture of tones, from the satiric, to the prophetic. Anthills of The Savannah manages a variety of voices and cadences with the skill and deep insight of the real master of the novel form."
Born on November 16, 1930, Achebe attended the Government College, Umuahia and the then University College of Ibadan. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the London University in 1953 and in 1956 studied broadcasting in London at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos in 1954, later becoming its Director of External Broadcasting. During the Civil War, he worked for the Biafran government service. After the war, he was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, of which he is now Emeritus Professor of English. He has lectured at many universities worldwide and is now Charles P Stevenson Jr Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, New York State, Annandale.
Achebe's work is primarily centred on African politics, the depiction of Africa and Africans in the West, and the intricacies of pre-colonial African culture and civilisation, as well as the effects of colonialisation on African societies.
His classic novel, Things Fall Apart, is considered among the finest novels ever written. Having sold over 10 million copies around the world, it has been translated into 50 languages, making Achebe the most translated African writer of all time. He is the recipient of over 30 honorary degrees as well as numerous awards for his work.
In 2004, Achebe declined to accept the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) - Nigeria's second highest honour - in protest of the state of affairs in the country.
Paralysed from the waist down in a 1990 car accident, he is married to Professor Christine Chinwe Achebe, with whom he has four children. He has lectured at many universities worldwide.
Chinua Achebe has written over 20 books, including novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry.
Source: Guardian, 14th June 2007.
Another prize for Achebe
By Reuben Abati
"Ol'Boy, wetin dey shelle? What's gwan? What's up, man? I know that look on your face..."
"The Supreme Court has done it again. Their Lordships have once more helped to solve a riddle. They have offered a landmark interpretation of the Constitution in the Anambra matter. This is another prize for Chinua Achebe."
" Chinua Achebe? I just hope there won't be any further trouble in Anambra after this."
" Achebe is from Anambra state. I guess the logic of the Supreme Court ruling in the Peter Obi case is simple enough: a Governor's tenure begins to run from the moment he is sworn in. If Obi won an election, and the wrong man, Ngige, is sworn in, and he, the right man is later declared winner by a competent court of law, it would amount to a miscarriage of justice to deny him the complete fruits of his legal victory".
"So, it means Peter Obi will now be Governor of Anambra State till 2010?"
"That is what the Supreme Court has said. And that is the position of the law."
"But what happens to the Governorship election of April 21 in that state, and Governor Andy Uba who has since assumed authority, and the election petition tribunal sitting over the April 21 election."
"Elementary law, my brother. As Lord Denning put it, you cannot put nothing on nothing, it cannot stand. What the Supreme Court is saying is that there was no basis in law for conducting the Gubernatorial elections in that state on April 21. The Court specifically tongue-lashed INEC."
"And the three years that Governor Ngige spent as Governor of Anambra?"
"That was Ngige's luck. He benefitted from sheer illegality. In law, you could say the Ngige government is not recognized.."
"Does that render everything that Ngige did a nullity?"
"More or less."
"Including the roads that he tarred? The hospitals that he built?"
"Leave Ngige out of this. His government is a good illustration of the effect of electoral fraud."
"I am trying to understand the implications of the ruling."
"I think the Supreme Court ruling is another wake up call for Nigerians, especially INEC and the politicians."
"My fear is that the Courts, at this rate, will start running the country."
"I think I prefer the rule of law, to the rule of brigands. But the point I am making is about learning the right lessons from the Peter Obi case. One, it pays to have faith in due process. Peter Obi will now go down in history as one man who stood by the law, and kept faith. Two, the Anambra debacle would probably not have occurred at all; if the election petition on the 2003 elections in Anambra had been determined before May 29, 2003. This is why I think the Electoral Act must be amended to ensure that election petitions are resolved early enough."
"Do we ever learn in this country?"
"If we don't learn from history, we are bound to repeat mistakes. And in 2007, we are repeating old mistakes."
"There is something I still don't understand."
"What is that?"
"The Andy Uba angle. He was a necessary party in the case, and yet he was not allowed the benefit of making his own representation."
"Who is a necessary party in law? That is the question you are asking. That matter was properly defined in Green v. Green. But you don't have to worry yourself. Andy Uba was properly joined in the case as 5th respondent."
"He was not joined."
"He was. You want to teach their Lordships the law? You think the Supreme Court would overlook such a critical angle to the case?"
"I am only trying to look at the matter beyond the law. The politics of it is as important as the law. You are praising the Supreme Court, for example. But think about the conduct of the Federal High Court, Enugu and the Court of Appeal in the same matter. The High Court ruled against Peter Obi. The Court of Appeal ran away from the case claiming it lacked jurisdiction. Will it be correct to say that that those other judges do not know the law?"
"That is your opinion. Others would say the apex court ruling is all that matters in this case. Once again, the PDP has been put to shame. The PDP created the crisis in Anambra in the first place."
"You mean Obasanjo? Or you mean Chris Uba? Because if Ngige had not fallen out of favour with Aso Rock and his Godfather he probably would have been protected. Only God knows how many Governors completed their tenures between 1999 and 2007 using a stolen mandate."
"A precedent has now been established in law. The Supreme Court has offered a clear and unambiguous interpretation of Section 180 of the 1999 Constitution. It is a triumph for democracy."
"Suppose the Yar'Adua government refuses to obey the ruling."
"The Supreme Court has spoken. Yar'Adua wouldn't dare intervene."
"What if he seeks a political solution?"
"To what effect?"
"But you know, of course, that the matter is not yet over. Even if Obi returns..."
"There is no such thing as even if..."
"Okay, but the House of Assembly in Anambra is PDP-dominated. Peter Obi could be impeached within two weeks of his assuming office again."
"That was not the matter before the Supreme Court."
"And if it happens that way?"
"Then Obi's Deputy takes over."
"And she is also impeached?"
"Then her Deputy takes over."
"Then the PDP House of Assembly will impeach both Governor Peter Obi and his Deputy, and the PDP will take over the state again. You see, there may be no end to the Anambra debacle."
"I hope not."
"I foresee a lot of problems ahead, all the same,, not just in Anambra, but in other states as well. The Supreme Court looks very determined."
"A determined and judicially activist Supreme Court is the best thing to have happened to Nigeria in the last 20 years."
"But what did the Supreme Court say on Governor Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State. Is he also going back to his office?"
"No, his own case is different."
"How?"
"He took oath of office in 2003."
"But he was impeached, and was later reinstated by the Supreme Court."
"Yes. But he wasn't sworn into office a second time. He simply returned to his office; and he collected all his outstanding salaries and allowances. In his case, it was as if nothing happened, and the Court cannot give what it does not have."
"I see. The law is sometimes convoluted."
"It is straightforward if you look at it closely enough."
"There is something I still don't understand. Suppose Governor Andy Uba refuses to hand-over to Peter Obi?"
"The Inspector-General of Police knows what to do. He and his men will be expected to do their job."
"Which Police are you talking about?"
"The Nigeria Police Force."
"Come on. But you know this is a police organisation that has been declared the most corrupt public institution in Nigeria, perhaps in the whole world"
"I read that. If I had a say in the matter, I would recommend that the Nigeria Police should be disbanded. And if not, then the entire top hierarchy of the Police should be fired."
"Oh come on. Don't throw away the baby with the bath water. The only man who is in the eye of the storm is the former Inspector-General, Mr. Sunday Ehindero."
"In my view, it is the entire police command that has been exposed, dragged in the mud, its integrity completely rubbished."
"No. It is Ehindero you should condemn. The man promised "To Service And Protect With Integrity". But look at the kind of stories we have been reading about him. These are stories being released by Police Headquarters, not even by any outsider. The whole thing stinks."
"I agree. No wonder the entire police is so undisciplined. When the rank and file read about money being hidden in toilets, television sets, and nylon bags in Police Headquarters, why won't they feel encouraged to collect bribe from the public?"
"I like the way the details are being released."
" I read that the former Inspector-General of Police has many palatial houses. There was also something about the purchase of one of the houses of former Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun. Then a missing N2.5 billion Police Cooperative Fund and N300 million meant for kits and uniforms"
"Tafa Balogun must be having a good laugh wherever he is."
"I hear the Acting IG Mike Okiro is Tafa's man, and he is helping his former boss to deal with Ehindero who is Tafa's arch-rival. It is the clash of the police bosses."
"I am not interested in any conspiracy theory. What I think is that Sunday Ehindero should begin to speak up. He has a right to defend himself."
"What do you expect him to say?"
"You mean he has nothing to say?"
"Well, the public is listening? Who is the owner of the N21 million that was found inside the toilet, nylon bags and old television set at Police Headquarters? Who bought the IG's House? What happened to Police Cooperative Funds? When did Police Headquarters become a bank?"
"Nigerians have no respect for money at all. That is why the Naira is losing value. Imagine how those policemen were moving money out of Force Headquarters as if they were moving household appliances?"
"But is it only the police? Look at the new class of lawmakers at the Federal level. The Yar'Adua government is giving them lorry loads of money, money meant for settling themselves down in Abuja."
"We had discussed that before, didn't we?"
"That was before the entire list of allowances was published. It is nauseating. The Federal Government is even taking loans from the banks."
"It is a bribe."
"It is a crazy bribe. It is going to cost the Federal Government N3.7 billion per annum."
"For a part-time political assignment? Where then is the idea of service?"
"You are asking me? Each Senator is getting N8.1 million to buy any car of his or her choice, members of the House of Representatives, N7.9 million each, and for Senators N126,650 to maintain the car monthly while Representatives will get N124,075 monthly for the same purpose."
"What kind of car maintenance is that? A brand new car? It doesn't even cost that much to maintain a helicopter in a month."
"You have bought one before?"
"When something is unreasonable, it speaks for itself. Nobody spends N126,000 to maintain a car in a month."
"Every lawmaker will also get a tidy sum as Constituency allowance."
"Constituencies that they do not visit once the election is over?"
"Wardrobe allowance."
"Are they going to the National Assembly for fashion parade?"
"Annual utility allowance also to cover their bills for electricity, gas, water, telephone, refuse disposal."
"You now see why we may never have free and fair elections in this country? That N3.7 billion that is going into the pockets of Federal lawmakers can be used to subsidize petroleum prices, for the benefit of all Nigerians. It can repair some roads, or buy hospital equipment."
"Nobody is thinking along those lines."
"But this is a new government. Yar'Adua should wake up. He is rather slow."
"He has just asked all the people paying solidarity visits to him to stop coming around, so he can start doing some work."
"You mean he has been busy receiving visitors since he got to Aso Villa?"
"He said so himself. And may be he has been playing squash too."
"And the same government will not meet with labour officials and ASUU to resolve lingering industrial disputes.?"
"The Federal Government is meeting with officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress today."
"Only today? They had to wait for Labour's 14-day ultimatum on the increase of the prices of petroleum products and VAT to expire before agreeing to discuss the issue? Is that the new style in Aso Villa?"
"Take it easy. You know our friend, Segun is the President's spokesman. You sef. You too dey do."
"And what has that got to do with the price of petroleum products? Candidly, I think labour should go ahead with the strike. Shut down the country. Force the government to reverse the unfair increases. Teach the Yar'Adua government a lesson about priorities, and the value of being pro-active."
"I agree with you. The man should wake up. Sleep-walking cannot be a leadership style."
"In Nigeria, you never know...."
Source: Guardian, 15th June 2007.
Celebrating Achebe's Things Fall Apart
THINGS Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe's literary masterpiece is 50 years old this year. Across the world the literati have aptly rolled out the drums to celebrate this classic which had so poignantly
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captured the colonial encounter between the Igbo and British, between one culture and the imposed ethos of a 'conquering civilisation'. Indeed, the novel was and is a metaphor for displaced identities and the crucial reaction of the African to the onslaught of colonialism. Reverberations from the thematic concerns of the novel and its cultural interrogations are still debated in contemporary literary discourse. This underscores the significance of the novel: its ability to speak to all generations using the platform of the colonial encounter.
Achebe himself has become an icon, a living legend and a testament to the abiding tenacity of the human spirit. To date he has written 21 novels, short stories and collections of stories. His works have won international acclaim. Arrow of God had won the New Statesman Jock Campbell Award. Christmas in Biafra was the joint winner of the First Commonwealth Prize. Anthills of the Savannah was a finalist in the prestigious Booker Prize in England. Last year, he was the winner of the 2007 Man Booker International Prize for Fiction. Significantly, Achebe rejected a national award which the Obasanjo administration bestowed on him at the peak of the political crisis in Anambra State. This was an expression of his moral objection to the mishandling of the political debacle between the then governor, Dr. Chris Ngige and gadfly Chief Chris Uba, in his home state at the time.
Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart at the age of 28, after his graduation from the then University College, Ibadan. Since then he has written other works which have faithfully captured the nuances of African culture and the aesthetics of the African imagination. No Longer At Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), Anthills of the Savannah (1987), are some of his literary works. His pamphlet The Trouble with Nigeria put the issue of lack of development squarely at the doorstep of poor leadership. Achebe's visionary prowess was uncannily displayed in A Man of the People, a novel that predicted the intervention of the military in Nigerian politics. Achebe taught for many years at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka before he relocated abroad upon retirement from that university.
Currently based in the United States, Achebe has oftentimes intervened in national debates, an indication that though he is in the Diaspora, his attention is riveted on the dynamics and challenges of Nigerian politics. Exile has not separated him from home, the source material for his enormous literary output. In spite of the serious injury which he sustained in a road accident during one of this visits to Nigeria, he has remained active, giving important lectures around the globe. Indeed he is a worthy cultural ambassador for Nigeria, Africa and the Black world.
Things Fall Apart, originally written in English, has been translated into some 60 languages. Okonkwo the central character is as familiar as the major characters in important novels anywhere in the world. The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) once dramatised and serialised the novel directed by David Orere. The novel is a recommended text in English and Cultural Departments across the world. Africans in the Diaspora have organised a series of literary activities to mark the silver jubilee. The Library of Congress in the United States of America plans to honour Achebe and his work on November 14, that is, shortly before his next birthday. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has also organised seminars, talk shows and lectures in Lagos, Ibadan and Nsukka, to celebrate the epoch-making novel. This is in order.
We must learn to celebrate our heroes. In the bleak atmosphere that the nation currently finds itself, the worth and place of Things Fall Apart give cause for optimism. We cannot divorce Things Fall Apart from its author. As we celebrate the novel, we pay tribute to this great man of letters and wish him many more years of fruitful living and literary activity.
However, there are disturbing signals in the book or publishing industry in Nigeria. The cost of raw materials is highly prohibitive, thereby placing the cost of books out of the reach of the common man. Real publishing which produced the likes of Achebe is virtually dead in the country. Publishers complain about their inability to sell literary works. Vanity publishing is the order of the day. Heinemann, which published Things Fall Apart, and many other African novels, has since discontinued the African Writers Series. There is also the decline in reading culture. People do not or cannot afford to buy the books in the market. Also, there is a sense in which the national ambience is hostile to reading. Power outages and the sheer demand of grappling with existential questions make reading a hazardous enterprise.
Besides, creative writing is not often supported by the State as it is in other parts of the world. Writers struggle to be heard in the general din in the land. It is instructive that most Nigerian writers who have won international prizes in the last decade are in the Diaspora. Creativity should be encouraged at home. We need to replicate the efforts of our past heroes by creating an environment conducive to writing and reading. This will be our final tribute to and recognition of the place of creative writing in forging an ethos for the sustenance of our national consciousness and identity.
As we congratulate our own Professor Chinualumogu Achebe, poet, novelist, social critic, and celebrate the silver jubilee anniversary of Things Fall Apart, it is apposite to observe that it is curious that the Nobel Prize for Literature has so far eluded this great, monumental writer of Nigerian descent. It is hoped that as an active and dynamic literary personality, the Nobel organisers would ultimately give him due recognition. It is also hoped that the example of Achebe would stimulate the powers-that-be to enunciate policies that could change the fortunes of Nigerian writers.
Source: The Guardian, 15th May 2008.
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