TRIBUTE TO CHINUA ACHEBE

By Flora Dairo and Ebenezer Akwuruoha

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”- Chinua Achebe

 You are the astute scholar of veritable truths. The man who deploys few words to say many things.

Things Fall Apart envelopes the things to gain in you. In it, we see your bravery, your value for culture and traditions, your interest in humanity and more than our pen can commit to paper.   Your weapon, indeed, is literature and you are truly a man of integrity.  

We see you as the first in the Trinity of the Nigerian literary giants known nationally and internationally.

Your novels addressed issues of traditional or indigenous ways of life affecting the new way of life. Even with the accident that left you wheel-chair bound, you still worked as Professor at Bard College in New York where you moved to. You won several awards including the Commonwealth Poetry prize and the Man booker prize in 2007. 

You are the founding father of Okike, a journal of creative writing and essays, the founding father of UwaNdigbo, another journal whose medium was Igbo while it existed; the acclaimed Father of Nigerian Literature; the founding editor of Nsukka Scope that championed the voice of freedom at the University of Nigeria in the 70’s; the eminent Emeritus Professor of English, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the voice of cultural liberation in Africa.

This is just a part of you we have tried to describe just as you have once said, “Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am and what I need is something I have to find out myself”

Sleep on while your works speak on.