It was not surprising that the passing of Chinua Achebe, the celebrated Nigerian-born writer, last week would stir numerous scholars as well as many others around the world to pay tribute to one of the most prolific authors of modern literature.
Best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe is regarded as a pioneer in modern African literature. His novels and essays critiqued post-colonial Nigerian politics and society as well as examined the impact of the West on Africa. Published in 1958, Things Fall Apart is said to be the most widely read work of African fiction, having sold more than 12 million copies. It has been translated into 50 languages.
On Thursday, March 21, the 82-year-old author died at a Boston-area hospital following a brief illness. At the time of his death, Achebe had been the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor at Brown University and he had recently published a memoir of his experience during the 1967-70 Biafran civil war in Nigeria.
At Brown and at numerous American colleges and universities, scholars marked Achebe’s death with an outpouring of praise and accolades for his achievement in literature. “Professor Achebe’s contribution to world literature is incalculable,” said Brown University President Emerita Ruth J. Simmons in a statement. Simmons was the university president when Achebe joined the Brown faculty in 2009.
“Millions find in his singular voice a way to understand the conflicting opportunities and demands of living in a post-colonial world. The courageous personal and artistic example he offered will never be extinguished. Brown is fortunate to have been his home,” she stated.
In Charleston, S.C., over the weekend, scholars attending the African Literature Association annual conference organized a special tribute to honor Achebe. Dr. Francoise Lionnet, director of the African Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, said news of Achebe’s death brought a somber tone to the event. “People, especially the Nigerian scholars who knew him or who had been writing on his works, were very touched and moved. I saw some people crying,” Lionnet said.
“There was a sense that an era was ending because [he is] the first great African writer in the English language. … He is the one whose work has had the most impact, and he’s considered a great figure who inaugurates the field of Anglophone African literature,” she noted.
