Nigerian writer (1930-2013)
I broke at last
the terror-fringed fascination
that bound my ancient gaze
to those crowding faces
of plunder and seized my
remnant life in a miracle
of decision between white
collar hands and shook it
like a cheap watch in
my ear and threw it down
beside me on the earth floor
and rose to my feet.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Attento, Soul Brother!
He who fights for a ne'er-do-well has nothing to show for it except a head covered in earth and grime.
CHINUA ACHEBE
No Longer at Ease
Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?
CHINUA ACHEBE
Arrow of God
Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
CHINUA ACHEBE
No Longer at Ease
Clearly there is no moral obligation to write in any particular way. But there is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless. An artist, in my definition of the word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects.
CHINUA ACHEBE
There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra
A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Things Fall Apart
This is not pessimism but rather casting a cold eye on things. It is only one man's story, and I think that things will go better, but difficulties exist and nothing is served by hiding them under a poetic veil or under a lyricism of the past. I am against slogans.
CHINUA ACHEBE
interview, Afrique, 1962
Strange
indeed how love in other
ways so particular
will pick a corner
in that charnel-house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
even fall asleep--her face
turned to the wall!
CHINUA ACHEBE
Attento, Soul Brother!
Man is sitting disconsolate on an anthill one morning. God asks him what the matter is and man replies that the soil is too swampy for the cultivation of the yams which God has directed him to grow. God tells him to bring in a blacksmith to dry the soil with his bellows. The contribution of humanity to this creation is so important. God could have made the world perfect if he had wanted. But he made it the way it is. So that there is a constant need for us to discuss and cooperate to make it more habitable, so the soil can yield, you see.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Conjunctions, Fall 1991
Come here into the hollow of my conscience
I will show you a thing or two
I will show you the heat of my love.
You know what?
I can give you babies too
Real leaders of tomorrow
Right here under the bridge
I can give you real leaders of thought.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Things Fall Apart
A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
CHINUA ACHEBE
No Longer at Ease
What really worries me is that those who are in positions of power are not really affected by what we are writing. In the moral dialogue you want to start, you really want to involve the leaders. People ask me: "Why were you so bold as to publish A Man of the People? How did you think the Government was going to take it? You didn't know there was going to be a coup?" I said rather flippantly that nobody was going to read it anyway, so I wasn't likely to be fired from my official position. It's a distressing thought that we cannot engage our leaders in the kind of moral debate we need.
CHINUA ACHEBE
interview, Sunday Nation, Jan. 15, 1967
The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
The eye is not harmed by sleep.
CHINUA ACHEBE
No Longer at Ease
Death is tolerable only when it leads again to life.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Collected Poems
Despite the daunting problems of identity that beset our contemporary society, we can see in the horizon the beginnings of a new relationship between artist and community which will not flourish like the mango-trick in the twinkling of an eye but will rather, in the hard and bitter manner of David Diop's young tree, grow patiently and obstinately to the ultimate victory of liberty and fruition.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
CHINUA ACHEBE
No Longer at Ease
The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn deep into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.
CHINUA ACHEBE
There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra
Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Arrow of God