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Great quote from Achebe used in a protest. Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante- Wikimedia commons

Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist best known for Things Fall Apart, the most widely read book in African literature. On November 16, 1930, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born in Igbo village, Ogidi, to Isaiah Okafo Achebe and Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam.

Chinua began attending St. Philips’ Central School in 1936 and was rapidly promoted to a higher grade level as his intelligence became apparent. Chinua moved four kilometers away from home when he was 12 to attend Central School, where his brother taught.

He then went to the elite Government College in Umuahia, a school founded for Nigeria’s brightest students. He went on to study medicine at Ibadan University College. When he decided to become a writer, so he changed his major to English, while still in college.

1.He was exceptionally talented at such a young age

Chinua began attending school as a child in 1936, at the age of six, at St. Philips’ Central School. He hadn’t been in class long when he was moved to a higher grade level because it was evident that he was incredibly smart and needed more difficult work than the other children his age.

His brother taught at Central School, which was about 4 kilometers away from St. Phillips. He moved when he was 12 years old to attend the school where his brother worked as a teacher. Following the completion of his studies at Central School, he went to the renowned Government College in Umuahia.

It was a school exclusively for the most top students in the entire country of Nigeria. After finishing his studies there, he went on to study medicine at the University College in Ibadan. He changed his major to English and decided to become a writer instead.

2.Achebe was heavily inspired by Mr. Johnson, father to Irish novelist Joyce Cary

While Achebe’s Igbo life growing up in Nigeria had long included storytelling, it was just part of what influenced him to write. While in college, he read Mister Johnson, a darkly humorous novel by Irish writer Joyce Cary about a young Nigerian clerk whose upbeat disposition afflicts everyone around him. TIME Magazine called it the “best book ever published about Africa,” but Achebe simply disapproved.

“My problem with Joyce Cary’s book was not just his annoying main character, Johnson,” Achebe wrote in Home and Exile. “More importantly, there is an undercurrent of uncharitableness just beneath the surface of his plot, from which, at the smallest indication, a contagion of disdain, hostility, and joking breaks through to poison his tale.” The book influenced Achebe to gain power of his plot in order to tell a more true story about his home.

3.A fatal accident changed the way he looked at life and wrote a book about it

While in Nigeria to commemorate his 60th birthday in 1990, Achebe was involved in a car crash that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Achebe and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o once disagreed about the use of language in African writers’ works.

Achebe wrote his books mainly in English and protected the use of a “coloniser’s language” in African literature, whereas wa Thiong’o, who now writes mainly in his native Kikuyu, contended for the use of mother tongue African languages.

4.Achebe was not always a fun of machines as they scared him

Despite the prevalence of typewriters, followed by computers, Achebe simply preferred a “very straight-forward” strategy. He told The Â鶹APP Review, “I write with a pen.” “For me, a pen on paper is the best way.” I’m not particularly fond of machines; I never taught myself to type well.

When I try to do anything on a typewriter, it’s as if the machine is between me and the words; what comes out isn’t exactly what I would scribble. For one thing, I dislike seeing typos on the typewriter. I enjoy a well-written script.

On the typewriter, I will occasionally leave a term that is incorrect or not what I want because changing it would be too difficult. So, when I consider all of this… “I am a pre-industrialist.”

5.’Things Fall Apart’ is one of the best selling books on African Literature to this day!

A spiral stack of copies of the 1994 Anchor Books edition of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. Photo by Scartol- Wikimedia commons

Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s debut novel, helped cement his reputation as the “Father of African Literature.” The book, which follows the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo leader and wrestling champion, was released in 1958 and has since sold over 10 million copies and been interpreted into 50 various languages. Even nearly 60 years after its initial publishing, it is still one of the most taught and discussed African novels.

6.Chinua always had an important message for the public in his novels

One of Chinua Achebe’s main aims in writing these books was to present a thriving, dynamic African society to western readers. Plenty other works at the time depicted Africa as a wild and primitive world entirely unlike our own. Achebe aimed to alter individual’s opinion of the area and its citizens.

7.While still in college, Achebe released his first piece of work

Chinua hadn’t even finished his English degree when he wrote his first short story. He was on his way to a brilliant and encouraging profession, and yet writing didn’t pay the bills, so after graduating from the University in 1954, he became a teacher as his primary career. He was a teacher at Oba’s Merchants of Light School.

8.’Things Fall Apart’ may have never come to light as the first copy was lost

Chinua Achebe in Lagos, Nigeria. Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli- Wikimedia commons

Things Fall Apart’s manuscript was misplaced at the editor’s office in London and went missing for very many months. Fortunately, the work was later found, and the printing process started.

9.He took a break from being a teacher and found greener pastures

The Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos presented Chinua Achebe a role as Director of External Broadcasting. He left his teaching job to take the job that paid significantly more. Then, in 1958, Achebe’s friend Gilbert Phelps recommended that he hire an agent to help him get his novel “Things Fall Apart” released. This was a fortunate occurrence. Chinua took his advice to heart and forwarded his piece of writing, which was approved, and the rest, as they say, is history.

10.Nelson Mandela was a huge fan of Achebe’s work

A spiral stack of copies of the 1994 Anchor Books edition of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. Photo by Scartol- Wikimedia commons

Achebe worked as an ambassador for the Biafran government during the Nigerian Civil War. Nelson Mandela is one of Chinua Achebe’s main supporters. “There was a author known as Chinua Achebe, in whose company the prison walls fell down,” Mandela said after Achebe died, reliving what he engaged in to keep himself busy during his 27 years in prison for apartheid in South Africa.