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There is a report that Prof. Soyinka just repeated his stance about Achebe not being “the father of Africa literature.”

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Chinua Achebe
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Chinua Achebe, the father of African literature?
“For many people all around the world, Chinua Achebe was their first African writer”
-Kwame Anthony Appiah

There is a report that Prof. Soyinka just repeated his stance about Achebe not being “the father of Africa literature.”

Well, we all could remember that just few weeks after Achebe’s demise, Soyinka had this to say; “Chinua himself repudiated such a tag—he did study literature after all, bagged a degree in the subject…Those who seriously believe or promote this must be asked: have you the sheerest acquaintance with the literatures of other African nations, in both indigenous and adopted colonial languages? What must the francophone, lusophone, Zulu, Xhosa, Ewe literary scholars and consumers think of those who persist in such a historic absurdity?”
He maybe right there. That’s his opinion. Just like everyone else has their own.

Of course, I have my own opinion on this issue but will mostly be sighting the opinions of great minds and institutions on the place of Achebe in African literature.

I think it was Noble Laureate Nadine Gordimer, the South African author that first called Achebe “the father of African literature when in 2007 he won the Man Booker International Price.

Writing on this issue, Kwame Appiah would say; “It would be impossible to say how “Things Fall Apart” influenced African writting. It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or how Pushkin influenced Russians.”

Ainehi Edoro, a Nigerian from Akure and a professor of Global Black Literature at University of Wisconsin-Madison, writing in the Brittle Paper, an online literary magazine for readers of African Literature, had this to say on the topic; “The first mistake that Soyinka makes.. is taking the idea of “the father” or “the inventor” way too literally.

Achebe is the father of African literature only in a metaphorical sense.

No one is saying that Achebe was physically present when African literature came into being—like he was some kind of god who stood before the expanse of Africa’s literary nothingness and said “let there be African literature, and then there was African literature.” She continued; “Before Achebe, if you were black and you were African, the world most likely did not see your work as literary.

They would evaluate your work as folklore, myth, or things that should interest an anthropologist, but not literature. This affected the way African writing was circulated globally.

Instead of African fiction to be reviewed by the New York Times or shelved alongside Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf, it was published by religious presses and reviewed in anthropological journals.

Things began to change in a big way after the global success of Things Fall Apart. It took a novel like Things Fall Apart for the global literary market, readership, and literary institution to see African writers the same way they saw Virginia Woolf or James Joyce or William Shakespeare—people writing things called literature and not myth, or folklore or historical documents or anthropological texts.”

Simon Gokandi, a Kenyan, Chair, Department of English, Class of 1943 University Professor of English at Princeton University has this to say; “Achebe is the man who invented African literature because he was able to show… that the future of African writing did not lie in the simple imitation of European forms but in the fusion of such forms with the oral tradition.”

As the founding editor of Heinemann’s African Writers Series from 1958, Achebe was managing editorial operations and the refinement of books published under this label.

Under Achebe’s editorship, many of the great literary works of great African minds and leaders went through him and this includes Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Keneth Kaunda, Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkuruma, Flora Nwakpa, Aluko T. M, Ekwensi Cyprian, Ferdinand Léopold Oyono, La Guma Alex, John Munonye and many more.

After Achebe left Heinemann’s in 1972 works of people like Mandela, Soyinka and Obasanjo also came to Heinemann’s.

It’s not just for his great books that Achebe is called by many all over the world “The father of African Literature” but also for his person and his overall contribution to the development of African Literature.

Perhaps that was why while writing in The New Yorker, Philip Gourevitch, an American author and journalist and a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker has this to say; “the fact that [Achebe] must be remembered as not only the father but the godfather of modern African literature owed at least as much to the decades he spent as the editor of Heinemann’s African Writers Series.”

Ngugi wa Thiongo would say; “There’s hardly any African writer of my generation who has not been mistaken for Chinua Achebe. Every African novel became Things Fall Apart, and every writer some sort of Chinua Achebe.

He never bragged about it, even refusing the unofficial title of father of African literature.” Writing in his tribute to Chinua Achebe, Ngugi also said that Soyinka agreed that he had been mistaken for Achebe in many occasions by so many in many country.

Certainly, it made not little sense when Mandela told Achebe what his novels brought to him among all the African literature he had while in prison: “There was a writer named Chinua Achebe in whose company the prison walls fell.”

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Education

UNIZIK Lecturer loses life during a tragic atta3k by U G M In Anambra

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4 days ago

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December 18, 2024

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A senior lecturer with the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Dr. Osita Chinedu has been k+lled by a gang of g¥nmen.

Dr. Chinedu who hails from Nteje in Oyi local government area of Anambra State, according to an eyewitness, was sh+t dead around the High Tension area in Awka by h+odlums who trailed him to the area at about 8 pm on Monday, December 16, 2024.

The eyewitness stated that the lecturer was driving in his Toyota Corolla when the h+odlums, who were also driving in another Toyota Corolla blocked his car, jumped out of their car and went straight for him.

The source said that immediately the lecturer came out from his car to query the reason for the blockage, one of the assailants pulled out a g¥n, and fired twice, sh+ttering his head.

“Those thieves went into his car, ran the car over him before driving away with his Toyota Corolla and their own too,” the eyewitness narrated.

According to Leadership, while those people were putting the remains of the lecturer in the boot of their vehicle, a team of policemen from the Central Police Station (CPS), Awka, arrived.

The police insisted that the remains of the late lecturer be handed over to them, but his people appealed to the police to leave the body of the sl+in lecturer for them.

Spokesperson of the Anambra police command, SP Tochukwu Ikenga in a statement appealed to the management of the institution, eyewitnesses and any other member of the public who might have any information that could help to arrest the k+llers to assist with information.

“The murderers made away with his car, a Toyota Corolla 2006 model, Ash colour with an Enugu Plate number, UWN 158 AS.

 

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Education

Delta wins $400,000 Bill and Melinda Gates primary health award

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December 13, 2024

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Delta State Government Thursday received $400,000 (four hundred thousand United States dollars) from the Primary Healthcare Leadership challenge organized by the Nigerian Governors forum in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for outstanding performance in primary health care management.

The award, which was organized by the Nigerian Governors Forum NGF, Federal Ministry of Health. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF was in recognition of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s initiative in the health sector for the past one year in line with the MORE agenda of his administration.

Nigeria’s Vice President, Alhaji Kashim Shettima and chairman of the Governors Forum, Alhaji AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq, who is also Governor of Kwara State, were present during the handover of the prize and money to Delta State officials.

Delta State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Joseph Onojaeme and Director General of the Delta State Contributory Health Commission (DSCHC), Dr Isaac Akpoveta were on ground to receive the award on behalf of Governor Oborevwori.

The award, started in 2019, was to shore up performance at the primary health care level so as to make health more accessible to people at the grassroots.

It is the first time since the inception of the awards that Delta will be considered for mention in any category of recognition. It has never won any prize money.

Speaking after collecting the award on behalf of Governor Oborevwori, Dr Onojaeme said that the award was proof that the administration’s MORE agenda was on course and yielding positive results.

He disclosed that Governor Oborevwori’s determination and commitment to revamp the health sector was not in doubt, adding that the recent approval for the renovation of over 150 primary health care centers (PHCs) must have been pivotal to receiving the award.

Delta State was considered for award after a visit of the technical committee set up to assess the state of PHCs in all 36 states and Abuja, the Federal Capital.

 


The committee comprised of representatives of the Federal Ministry of Health, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, World Health Organisation (WHO), World Bank, United Nations Food Programme (UNFPA), among others.

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Education

NYSC DG Leads Search For Missing Corps Member

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1 week ago

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December 13, 2024

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Ekwutosblog has gathered that Director-General of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Brigadier General YD Ahmed, has called for collective efforts in the search for Yahaya Farouk, a corps member, who went missing in Ikuru Town, Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The NYSC chief, during his visit to the community, yesterday, urged residents, including youths and elders, to support security agencies in locating the missing corps member.

Ahmed also inspected the scene of the incident and emphasized the shared responsibility of host communities to ensure the safety and welfare of corps members serving in their domains.

He reiterated his administration’s dedication to advocate better security measures for all NYSC participants across the country.

He said: “The essence of my coming is to appeal to assist us in getting the corps member, who came for national service from another state.

“My administration will continue to appeal for adequate security and welfare of Corps members at all times. It is also the responsibility of residents of Corps members’ host communities to provide security and welfare package for corps members serving in their domain.”

At a meeting held during the visit, the Youth President, Etete Jerb Anthony, and the Ward Secretary, Paul Friday, disclosed that the community had made significant efforts to locate Farouk, who disappeared while at a Chinese mining company within the area.

Both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to continue search and rescue operations.

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