Mourners remember the late Nigerian literary giant Chinua Achebe on the International Day honoring him in the capital, Abuja 2013 (French)

Although the works of the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) did not exceed 5 novels, he was able to engrave his name deservedly in the history of the international novel, because he is a capable novelist, and because his novels represented a qualitative shift in the history of the African novel in general and those written in particular in the language. English, whether that shift was in form or content, which contributed to achieving wide fame for him.

Achebe continued to strive, through the novels he published, to read the experience of European colonialism in Africa, and to depict what happened on that continent, after the departure of this colonizer, after a class of African rulers and employees took control, when they exercised the utmost levels of tyranny, to the point that The lives of the peoples of the continent have become more difficult than they were in colonial times.

An important turning point

Achebe's novel "Things Fall Apart" is considered a classic of literature, having been translated into more than 50 foreign languages. At a time when this novel represented an important turning point in the eras of the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, for most writers who belong to the Black Continent.

This novel inaugurated the beginning of a new literary trend known as post-colonial literature, in which the novel “Things Fall Apart” was considered the first novel in the literature of the post-colonial period, before it was followed by many novels and literary works from various third world countries, which were called In university studies in countries around the world, the term “postcolonial literature”.

Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe worked as a professor of literature at Bard College in New York State (French)

Within the character

The prominent works of fiction written by Achebe, in which he dissects the mechanisms of power and the corruption of modern state officials in Africa, presenting a dark and depressing picture of what is happening in his country, Nigeria, and in the rest of the countries of the continent.

It is what put him in the position that his works still occupy, and it is what also made him, over the course of more than half a century, the most important African writer of all time.

This is what Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian writer who also won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, pointed out when he said that “Achebe’s works speak from within the African personality, instead of portraying the African as something strange and wondrous as the white sees it.”

Meanwhile, Nadine Gordimer, a South African writer who also won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, saw that “Achebe has a brilliant, great talent, full of enthusiasm and richness,” and literary critic Bruce Kane wrote in his introduction to Nigerian literature, stressing that Achebe is the first Nigerian writer to succeed in translating and transmitting The novel, from European art style to African literature.

Writer Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, asserts that it was Achebe who ignited her love affair with African literature, and that he left the greatest impact on her beginnings as a writer.

Things fall apart

The novel "Things Fall Apart" received high praise, and historians of African literature viewed it as one of the most important African novels written during the twentieth century.

Some of them credited it with placing African literature at the center of global novelistic creativity, as Achebe used the stock of stories in the Nigerian Igbo tribes to write a unique text, crowded with tales and poetry, and in a style that ranged between telling stories and dialogues that take place between characters, and using proverbs. Magic spells are used to expel evil spirits or summon ancestral spirits, which are believed to preserve those belonging to the tribe and protect them from the spirits of other tribes.

The novel "Things Fall Apart" blended the European novel form with the oral narrative legacy of Nigerian tribes (Al Jazeera)

By using a combination of the European novel form and the oral narrative legacy of Nigerian tribes, Achebe was able to embody the first indicators of the clash that occurred between Western colonialism and the African peoples at the end of the nineteenth century.

The second novel

The novel “No Longer Sense of Comfort,” published by Achebe in 1960, which is considered his second novel, came as a sequel to the novel “Things Fall Apart.” It derives its title from a quote from a famous poem by the poet “TS Eliot,” entitled “The Journey of the Magi.” It is concerned with monitoring the frustrations that afflict a person when he clings to false illusions, and therefore he wishes to return to nothingness or death, which indicates an explicit intertextual relationship between that poem and the novel.

The novel “There is No Longer a Sense of Comfort” addresses the clash between the traditional values ​​of African societies and the values ​​of incoming colonialism (Al Jazeera)

In this novel, Achebe continued to address the topic of the clash between the traditional values ​​of African societies and the values ​​of incoming colonialism, but he moved from the stage of the beginnings of colonialism, which he dealt with in his first novel, to the post-colonial stage, which is exposed to societal and cultural transformations, and the novel begins with the scene of the trial of “Obi Okonkwo.” On charges of receiving bribes to facilitate some students obtaining scholarships and scholarships to England.

The events reveal a serious defect in society, and the accusation directed against Okonkwo, which becomes very bad and destructive to his name, because it is assumed that he has become in a distinguished social position after obtaining his academic degree in England, which was an aspiration that many of his country’s citizens sought, in order to advance the ladder. Government job, and get a "European job".

The novel “No Longer Sense of Comfort” seeks to depict the repercussions of British colonialism on Nigerian society, and the transformations it brought about in society’s traditions and moral structure.

As it represents the second and complementary part of the novel “Things Fall Apart,” it focuses on the life of Okonkwo’s grandson, who went to Britain to complete his studies, and returned to work in the administration of the Nigerian missions in the capital, Lagos, in the period that preceded the departure of the colonial administration, and the replacement of the local administration in its place.

After returning from studying English literature in London, the grandson, Obi, gets involved in the life of the capital, which distracts him from his rural town, Umuofia, and from his mother and father, as he had abandoned his family in “Things Fall Apart” and joined the church, adopting the Christian religion.

The combination of the Christian education that Obi received, and his years of study in Britain, in addition to the intellectual and cultural transformations to which he was exposed, were what ultimately put him in confrontation with the strict tribal traditions that Western culture and religion were unable to overcome. His Christian parents stood against his marriage to “Obi.” Clara, the Nigerian girl I love, belongs to a sect that is traditionally considered an outcast class that is forbidden to mix with or marry, because one of her grandfathers vowed himself to worship the gods in the tribe.

The events of this novel coincide with the time of Nigeria's independence, and Obi's relationship with Clara gradually turns into a great psychological and financial burden, especially in light of his father and the National Union's rejection of this relationship, and his mother's threat to him to commit suicide if he marries her. All of these pressures crowd Obi, and his loyalty to his family, his clan, and their values ​​conflicts with him. His acquired Western education and culture with its imported values, his need for money and his overwhelming affection for Clara force him to neglect his idealism and accept bribes, so he becomes corrupt and ends up in prison.

"Arrow of God"

In the novel "Arrow of God", which was published in 1964, as the third of Achebe's novels, he traces another stage in the development of African society, the stage in which colonialism was able to consolidate its position and establish its feet on the continent.

The novel "Arrow of God" discusses the colonial era after it consolidated its position and established its feet in the African continent (Al Jazeera)

This novel focuses on the clash between European colonialism and traditional African society, as it presents a new episode of this clash, which Achebe began in the novel “Things Fall Apart.”

The novel "God's Arrow" presents the fall and collapse of one of the main pillars on which traditional society was based, which is the traditional religious institution, which led to making way for the new religious institution, to dispute the matter, and then to replace it almost completely.

The novel "Arrow of God" takes place in Igbo land in the 1920s, and its hero is Ezeulu, the priest of the god "Ulu", who controls the announcement of the harvest season.

He is a man who has status among his tribe, due to his religious and spiritual status. He also gains the admiration of the English district director, because of his honesty, as he was the only witness who testified against his tribe, when he gave his testimony on the issue of the disputed land, in favor of the other tribe’s right to the land.

This attracted the attention of the English manager to him, and prompted him a few years later to summon him and offer him the position of local leader of his tribe.

In this novel, Achebe turned this novel, which seemed less compact, eloquent, and profound than Achebe's first and second novels, into an exhibition of hot facts that express the political and social environment, in which the characters move, in the post-colonial era, after Achebe excelled in constructing events and characters. Telling stories and designing dialogues.

Therefore, we find ourselves facing lively, vibrant characters and events, while the big ideas and striking metaphors that characterized “Things Fall Apart” disappear, and to a lesser extent, “There is No Longer a Sense of Comfort.”

This demonstrates the narrative energies, the remarkable dialogic abilities, and the potential for dramatic depiction contained in Achebe’s work, which represents a milestone in the history of African literature, as well as the history of world literature.

In his novel, “God’s Arrow,” Chinua Achebe focused on the clash between European colonialism and traditional African society (Getty)

Distinguished status

The appreciation that Achebe received was not limited to the awards he received, or to the appreciation and praise of writers and critics only, but he also received appreciation from many famous political figures. On his seventieth birthday, which was held in the United States, the world did not neglect to confirm the recognition of the status of this... The distinguished novelist.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela sent a letter recalling Achebe’s works that he read while he was still in prison during the apartheid regime, indicating how much he admired the writer who knew no cowardice, as he put it. Mandela also praised Achebe, saying that he was “the writer in whose eyes the walls collapsed.” Prison, while he was reading those novels.”

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, also expressed similar admiration, as he spoke of his “courageous national stances against the diseases that are devastating Africa...”

Meanwhile, former US President Jimmy Carter said that Achebe was his "model of heroism."

Frustration and objection

At the beginning of 2006, the Nigerian government announced that Achebe would be honored and given him a prestigious award, the Federal Republic Award. However, Achebe rejected this award, in objection to Nigeria’s political and social conditions. He sent a letter to Nigerian President Obasanjo in which he said: “The conditions that Nigeria is experiencing under the regime "Your judgment is too dangerous to remain silent about. I hereby register my frustration and objection to that by rejecting the highest honor I can possibly attain."

Source: Al Jazeera