Wednesday, May 29, 2013

What Achebe did not know - By Tunde Okanlawon


This is a humble tribute and a preliminary entry of the writer, Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) into the literary history of Nigeria, my doctoral and post-doctoral, indeed, life’s enterprise, which Achebe (1930-2013) suggested would be a group undertaking. It was in 1988 at the National Theatre, when thanks to the Federal Ministry of Culture and the French Embassy, we were celebrating the 1986 Nobel (Wole Soyinka).
ENJOY

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Things Left Unsaid - Chimamanda Adichie



Achebe mourns Biafra, but his anger is directed at the failures of Nigeria. His great disappointment manifests itself in a rare moment of defiance towards the end of the book:
There are many international observers who believe that Gowan’s actions after the war were magnanimous and laudable. There are tons of treatises that talk about how the Igbo were wonderfully integrated into Nigeria. Well, I have news for them: the Igbo were not and continue not to be reintegrated into Nigeria, one of the main reasons for the country’s continued backwardness, in my estimation.

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