Chinua Achebe (born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on November 16,
1930) is a Nigerian novelist,
poet and critic. He is best known for his first novel,
Things Fall Apart, which is perhaps the most widely-read book in modern
African literature.[2]
Raised in the Igbo village of Ogidi in south Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with
world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked
for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos. He gained
worldwide attention when Things Fall Apart was published in 1958; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964),
A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe wrote his novels in English and has defended the use of English, a language of colonizers, in African literature. In 1975
he was the focus of controversy when he delivered a lecture entitled An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of
Darkness". He criticized author Joseph Conrad for his unflattering depiction of
African people, referring to him as "a thoroughgoing racist".
When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a devoted supporter
of the secession and ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence
took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in
1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he
witnessed.
Achebe's novels focus on the traditions of Igbo society and the clash of values during and after the colonial era. His style
relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs,
and oratory. He has also published a number of short stories, children's books, and essay
collections. He is currently the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson,
New York.
Biography
Achebe's parents, Isaiah Okafo Achebe and Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam, were converts to the Protestant Church Mission Society (CMS) in
Nigeria.[3] The elder
Achebe stopped practicing the religion of his ancestors, but he respected its traditions and sometimes incorporated elements of
its rituals into his Christian practice. Chinua's unabbreviated name, Chinualumogu ("May God fight on my behalf")[4], was a prayer for divine protection and stability.[5] The Achebe family had five other surviving children, named in a
similar fusion of traditional words relating to their new religion: Frank Okwuofu, John Chukwuemeka Ifeanyichukwu, Zinobia Uzoma,
Augustine Nduka, and Grace Nwanneka.[6]
Early life
Chinua was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in the Igbo village of Nneobi, on
November 16, 1930.[7] The crossroads of culture at which their parents stood made a significant impact
on the children, especially Chinualumogu. After the birth of their youngest daughter, the family moved to Isaiah Achebe's
ancestral village of Ogidi, in what is now the Nigerian state of Anambra.[8]
Map of Nigeria's
linguistic groups. Achebe's homeland, the
Igbo region (sometimes called Ibo) lies in the central south (shown here in mustard yellow), just north of
the Ijaw (green) and Efik-Ibibio (dark red) regions.
Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition and an integral part of the community. Chinua's mother and sister Zinobia
Uzoma continually told him stories as a child, which he repeatedly requested. His education was furthered by the collages his
father hung on the walls of their home, as well as almanacs and numerous books – including a prose adaptation of
A Midsummer Night's Dream and an Igbo version of The Pilgrim's Progress.[9][10] Chinua also eagerly
anticipated traditional village events, like the frequent masquerade ceremonies,
which he recreated later in his novels and stories.[11]
Education
In 1936 Achebe entered St. Philips' Central School, a T-shaped building surrounded by mango
trees. Despite his protests, he spent a week in the religious class for young children, but was quickly moved to a higher class
when the school's reverend took note of his intelligence.[12] One teacher described him as the student with the best handwriting in class,
and the best reading skills.[13] He also attended
Sunday school every week, often carrying his father's bag to the special evangelical
sessions held once a month. A controversy erupted at one such session, when apostates from the
new church challenged the catechist about the tenets of Christianity. Achebe later included a
scene from this incident in Things Fall Apart.[14][15]
At the age of twelve, Achebe moved to the village of Nekede, four kilometers from
Owerri. He enrolled as a student at the Central School, where his older brother John
taught.[16] In Nekede, Achebe gained an appreciation for
Mbari, a traditional art form which seeks to invoke the gods' protection through sculpture and collage.[17]
Although he was also accepted to the equally-prestigious Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha, Achebe attended Government College in Umuahia from 1944 to
1948.[18] Once there, he was double-promoted in his first
year and spent only four years in secondary school, instead of the standard five. Achebe was unsuited to the sports regimen of
the school and belonged instead to a group of exceedingly studious pupils. So intense were their study habits that the headmaster
banned the reading of textbooks from five to six o'clock in the afternoon (other books were
allowed).[19] Forced to explore the volumes in the
school's library, he read Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, which was his first exposure to books written in the United States.[20]
During secondary school, Achebe read classic novels from Europe such as Treasure
Island, Gulliver's Travels, and David Copperfield. He also read novels describing Europeans adventuring in Africa and
other continents, including H. Rider Haggard's Alan Quartermain and John Buchan's
Prester John. Achebe later recalled that, as a reader, he "took sides with
the whitemen against the savages" and even developed a dislike for Africans. "The white man was good and reasonable and
intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed against him were sinister and stupid or, at the most, cunning. I hated their
guts."[21] The students were taught English, partly as a
way to provide a common tongue for pupils from various linguistic areas. Achebe said later they were ordered to "put away their
different mother tongues and communicate in the language of their colonizers." He was punished when he spoke his native
Igbo.[22]
University
Achebe achieved high marks when he took the entrance exam in 1948 for the University of
Ibadan – then known as University College, Ibadan. These earned him a "Major"
classification and a scholarship to study medicine. After a year of grueling work in
physics, however, he decided science was not for him and changed to English, history, and theology.[23] Because he switched his field, however, he lost his scholarship and had to pay
tuition fees. He received a government bursary, and his family also donated money – his older
brother Augustine even gave up money for a trip home from his job as a civil servant so Chinua could continue his
studies.[24]
The University of Ibadan was known for its literary community. It produced a plethora of remarkable writers in the years
before and after Achebe's presence there, including Nobel Laureate
Wole Soyinka, novelist Elechi Amadi, poet and
playwright John Pepper Clark, and poet Christopher Okigbo.[25] In
1950 Achebe wrote a piece for the University Herald entitled "Polar Undergraduate", his debut as an author. It used irony
and humor to celebrate the intellectual vigor of his classmates.[26] He followed this with other essays and letters about philosophy and freedom in academia, some of
which were published in another campus magazine, The Bug.[27] He served as the Herald's editor during the 1951–2 school year.[28]
While at the University, Achebe wrote his first short story, "In a Village Church", which combines details of life in rural
Nigeria with Christian institutions and icons, a style which appears in many of his later works.[29] Other short stories he wrote during his time at Ibadan (including "The Old
Order in Conflict with the New" and "Dead Men's Path") examine conflicts between tradition and modernity, with an eye toward dialogue and understanding on both sides.[30] When a professor named Geoffrey Parrinder arrived at the university to teach
comparative religion, Achebe abandoned his study of geography and began to explore
the fields of Christian history and African traditional religions.[31]
It was during his studies at Ibadan that Achebe began to become critical of European literature about Africa. He read Irish
novelist Joyce Cary's book Mister Johnson,
about a cheerful Nigerian man who (among other things) works for an abusive British store owner. Achebe recognized his dislike
for the African protagonist as a sign of the author's cultural ignorance. One of his classmates announced to the professor that
the only enjoyable moment in the book is when Johnson is shot.[32]
After the final examinations at Ibadan in 1953, Achebe was awarded a second-class degree. Rattled by not receiving the highest
result possible, he was uncertain how to proceed after graduation. He returned to his hometown of Ogidi to sort through his
options.[33]
Teaching and producing
While he meditated on his possible career paths, Achebe was visited by a friend from the university, who convinced him to
apply for a English teaching position at the Merchants of Light school at Oba. It was a
ramshackle institution with crumbling infrastructure and a meager library; the school was built on what the residents called "bad
bush" – a section of land thought to be tainted by unfriendly spirits.[34] Later, in Things Fall Apart, Achebe describes a similar area called the "evil forest", where
the Christian missionaries are given a place to build their church.[35]
As a teacher he urged his students to read extensively and be original in their work.[36] The students didn't have access to the newspapers he'd read as a student, so
Achebe made his own available in the classroom. He taught in Oba for four months, but when an opportunity arose in 1954 to work
for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), he quit the school and moved to Lagos.[37]
The NBS, a radio network started in 1933 by the colonial government,[38] assigned Achebe to the Talks Department, preparing scripts
for oral delivery. This trained him to differentiate between the written and spoken word, a skill that illuminated the author's
task of writing realistic dialogue.[39]
The city of Lagos also made a significant impression on him. A huge conurbation, the city
teemed with life imported from the rural villages. Achebe reveled in the social and political activity around him and later drew
upon his experiences when describing the city in his 1960 novel No Longer At
Ease.[40]
While in Lagos, Achebe started work on a novel. This was challenging, since very little African fiction had been written in
English, although Amos Tutuola's Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and Cyprian Ekwensi's People of the City (1954) were notable exceptions. While appreciating Ekwensi's
work, Achebe worked hard to develop his own style, even as he pioneered the creation of the Nigerian novel itself.[41] A visit to Nigeria by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956 brought issues of colonialism and politics to the surface,
and was a significant moment for Achebe.[42]
Also in 1956, Achebe was selected to attend a Staff School training program in London run by the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). His first trip outside Nigeria was an opportunity to advance his technical production
skills, and to solicit feedback on his novel (which was later split into two books). In London he met a novelist named Gilbert
Phelps, to whom he offered the manuscript. Phelps responded with great enthusiasm, asking Achebe if he could show it to his
editor and publishers. Achebe declined, insisting that it needed more work.[43]
Things Fall Apart
-
Back in Nigeria, Achebe set to work revising and editing his novel (now titled Things Fall Apart). He cut away the
second and third sections of the book, leaving only the story of a yam farmer named Okonkwo. He added sections, improved various
chapters, and restructured the prose. By 1957 he had sculpted it to his liking, and took advantage of an advertisement offering a
typing service. He sent his only copy of his handwritten manuscript (along with the ₤22 fee) to the London company. After he
waited several months without receiving any communication from the typing service, Achebe began to worry. His boss at the
NBS, Angela Beattie, was going to London for her annual leave; he asked her to visit the company.
She did, and angrily demanded to know why it was lying ignored in the corner of the office. The company quickly sent a typed copy
to Achebe. Beattie's intervention was crucial for his ability to continue as a writer. Had the novel been lost, he later said, "I
would have been so discouraged that I would probably have given up altogether."[44]
In 1958 Achebe sent his novel to the agent recommended by Gilbert Phelps in London. It was sent to several publishing houses;
some rejected it immediately, claiming that fiction from African writers had no market potential.[45] Finally it reached the office of Heinemann, where executives hesitated until an educational advisor, Donald MacRae – just back
in England after a trip through west Africa – read the book and forced the company's hand with his succinct report: "This is the
best novel I have read since the war."[46]
Heinemann published 2,000 hardcover copies of Things Fall Apart on 17 June
1958. According to Alan Hill, employed by the publisher at the time, the company didn't "touch a
word of it" in preparation for release. The book was received well by the British press, and received positive reviews from
critic Walter Allen and novelist Angus Wilson. Three
days after publication, the Times Literary Supplement wrote that
the book "genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from the inside". The
Observer called it "an excellent novel", and the literary magazine Time and Tide said that "Mr. Achebe's style
is a model for aspirants".[47]
Initial reception in Nigeria was mixed. When Hill tried to promote the book in West Africa, he was met with skepticism and
ridicule. The faculty at the University of Ibadan was amused at the thought of a worthwhile novel being written by an
alumnus.[48] Others were more supportive; one review in
the magazine Black Orpheus said: "The book as a whole creates for the reader such a vivid picture of Ibo life that the
plot and characters are little more than symbols representing a way of life lost irrevocably within living memory."[49]
In the book Okonkwo struggles with the legacy of his father – a shiftless debtor fond of playing the flute – as well as the
complications and contradictions that arise when white missionaries arrive in his village of Umuofia.[50] Exploring the terrain of cultural conflict, particularly the encounter between
Igbo tradition and Christian doctrine, Achebe returns to the themes of his earlier stories, which grew from his own
background.
Things Fall Apart has become one of the most important books in African
literature.[51] Selling over 10 million copies
around the world, it has been translated into 50 languages, making Achebe the most translated African writer of all time.[52] The book has appeared on numerous "100 greatest novels"
lists, including Time magazine's 2005 chart.[53][54]
Marriage and family
In the same year Things Fall Apart was published, Achebe was promoted at the NBS and put in charge of the eastern
region of Nigeria. He moved to Enugu and began to work on his administrative duties. There he met
a woman named Christie Okoli, who had grown up in the area and joined the NBS staff when he arrived. They first conversed when
she brought to his attention a pay discrepancy; a friend of hers found that, although they had been hired simultaneously,
Christie had been rated lower and offered a lower wage. Sent to the hospital for an appendectomy soon afterwards, she was
pleasantly surprised when Achebe visited her with gifts and magazines.[55]
Achebe and Okoli grew closer in the following years, and on September 10,
1961 were married in the Chapel of Resurrection on the campus of the University of Ibadan.[56] Christie Achebe has described their marriage as one of trust
and mutual understanding; some tension arose early in their union, due to conflicts about attention and communication. However,
as their relationship matured, husband and wife made accommodations to adapt to one another.[57]
Their first child, a daughter named Chinelo, was born on July 11, 1962. They had a son, Ikechukwu, on December 3, 1964, and another boy named Chidi on May 24, 1967.
When the children began attending school in Lagos, their parents became worried about the worldview – especially with regard to
race – expressed at the school, especially through the mostly white teachers and books that
presented a prejudiced view of African life.[58] In 1966,
Achebe published his first children's book, Chike and the River, to address
some of these concerns.[59] After the Biafran secession and war, the Achebes had another daughter on March 7,
1970, named Nwando.[60]
No Longer at Ease and fellowship travels
In 1960, while they were still dating, Achebe dedicated to Christie Okoli his second novel, No Longer at Ease, about a civil servant who is embroiled in the corruption of Lagos. The
protagonist is Obi, grandson of Things Fall Apart's main character, Okonkwo.[61] Drawing on his time in the city, Achebe writes about Obi's experiences in Lagos
to reflect the challenges facing a new generation on the threshold of Nigerian
independence. Obi is trapped between the expectations of his family, its clan, his home village, and larger society. Obi
is crushed by these forces (like his grandfather before him) and finds himself imprisoned for bribery. Having shown his acumen
for portraying traditional Igbo culture, Achebe demonstrated in his sophomore work an ability
to depict modern Nigerian life.[62]
Later that year, Achebe was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for six months of
travel, which he called "the first important perk of my writing career"; Achebe set out for a tour of East Africa. One month after Nigeria achieved its independence, he traveled to Kenya, where he was required to complete an immigration form by checking a box indicating his ethnicity:
European, Asiatic, Arab, or Other. Shocked and dismayed at being forced into an "Other" identity, he found the situation "almost
funny" and took an extra form as a souvenir.[63]
Continuing to Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now united in
Tanzania), he was frustrated by the paternalistic attitude
he observed among non-African hotel clerks and social elites.[64]
Achebe also found in his travels that Swahili was gaining prominence as a major
African language. Radio programs were broadcast in Swahili, and its use was widespread in the countries he visited. Nevertheless,
he also found an "apathy" among the people toward literature written in Swahili. He met the poet Sheikh Shaaban Robert, who complained of the difficulty he had faced in trying to publish his
Swahili-language work.[65]
In Northern Rhodesia (now called Zambia), Achebe
found himself sitting in a whites-only section of a bus to Victoria Falls. Interrogated
by the ticket taker as to why he was sitting in the front, he replied, "if you must know I come from Nigeria, and there we sit
where we like in the bus." Upon reaching the waterfall he was cheered by the black travelers from the bus, but he was saddened by
the irony that they felt unable to stand up to the policy of segregation.[66]
Two years later, Achebe again left Nigeria, this time as part of a Fellowship for Creative Artists awarded by UNESCO. He traveled to the United States and Brazil. He met with a number of writers from the US, including novelists Ralph
Ellison and Arthur Miller.[67] In Brazil, he met with several other authors, with whom he discussed the complications of writing
in Portuguese. Achebe worried that the vibrant literature of the nation would be
lost if left untranslated into a more widely-spoken language.[68]
Voice of Nigeria and African Writers Series
Once he returned to Nigeria, Achebe was promoted at the NBS to the position of Director of
External Broadcasting. One of his first duties was to help create the Voice of Nigeria
network. The station broadcast its first transmission on New Year's Day 1962, and worked
to maintain an objective perspective during the turbulent era immediately following independence.[69] This objectivity was put to the test when Nigerian Prime Minister
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa declared a state of emergency in the Western Region,
responding to a series of conflicts between officials of varying parties. Achebe became saddened by the evidence of corruption
and silencing of political opposition.[70]
In 1962 he attended a conference of African writers in English at the Makerere
University College in Kampala, Uganda. He met with
important literary figures from around the continent and the world, including Ghanian poet Kofi
Awoonor, Nigerian playwright and poet Wole Soyinka, and US poet-author
Langston Hughes. Among the topics of discussion was an attempt to determine whether the
term African literature ought to include work from the diaspora, or solely that writing composed by people living within the continent itself. Achebe indicated that
it was not "a very significant question", and that scholars would do well to wait until a body of work were large enough to
judge. Writing about the conference in several journals, Achebe hailed it as a milestone for the literature of Africa, and
highlighted the importance of community among isolated voices on the continent and beyond.[71]
While at Makerere, Achebe was asked to read a novel written by a student (James Ngugi, later known as Ngugi wa Thiong'o) called Weep Not, Child. Impressed, he sent it to Alan Hill at Heinemann,
which published it two years later to coincide with its paperback line of books from African writers. Hill indicated this was to
remedy a situation where British publishers "regarded West Africa only as a place where you sold books." Achebe was chosen to be
General Editor of the African Writers Series, which became a significant force in
bringing postcolonial literature from Africa to the rest of the world.[72]
As these works became more widely available, reviews and essays about African literature – especially from Europe – began to
flourish. Bristling against the commentary flooding his home country, Achebe published an essay titled "Where Angels Fear to
Tread" in the December 1962 issue of Nigeria Magazine. In it, he distinguished between the hostile critic (entirely
negative), the amazed critic (entirely positive), and the conscious critic (who seeks a balance). He lashed out at those who
critiqued African writers from the outside, saying: "no man can understand another whose language he does not speak (and
'language' here does not mean simply words, but a man's entire world view)."[73]
Arrow of God
Achebe's third book, Arrow of God, was published in 1964. Like its predecessors, it explores the intersections of Igbo
tradition and European Christianity. Set in the village of Umuaro at the start of the twentieth
century, the novel tells the story of Ezeulu, a Chief Priest of Ulu. Shocked by the power of British intervention in the
area, he orders his son to learn the foreigners' secret. As with Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart and Obi in No Longer at
Ease, Ezeulu is consumed by the resulting tragedy.
The idea for the novel came in 1959, when Achebe heard the story of a Chief Priest being imprisoned by a District
Officer.[74] He drew further inspiration a year later
when he viewed a collection of Igbo objects excavated from the area by archaeologist
Thurstan Shaw; Achebe was startled by the cultural sophistication of the artifacts. When an acquaintance showed him a series of
papers from colonial officers (not unlike the fictional Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger referenced
at the end of Things Fall Apart), Achebe combined these strands of history and began work on Arrow of God in
earnest.[75] Like Achebe's previous works, Arrow
was roundly praised by critics.[76] A revised edition was
published in 1974 to correct what Achebe called "certain structural weaknesses".[77]
In a letter to Achebe, the US writer John Updike expressed his surprised admiration for
the sudden downfall of Arrow of God's protagonist. He praised the author's courage to write "an ending few Western
novelists would have contrived". Achebe responded by suggesting that the individualistic hero was rare in African literature,
given its roots in communal living and the degree to which characters are "subject to non-human forces in the universe".[78]
A Man of the People
A Man of the People was published in 1966. A bleak satire set in an unnamed African state which has just attained
independence, the novel follows a Minister of Culture named Nanga. As the protagonist is seduced by corruption and the
satisfaction of his personal desires, the nation around him falls victim to a military coup. Upon reading an advance copy of the
novel, Achebe's friend John Pepper Clark declared: "Chinua, I know you are a
prophet. Everything in this book has happened except a military coup!"[79]
One year later, Nigerian Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu seized control of the
northern region of the country as part of a larger coup attempt. Commanders in other areas failed, and the plot was answered by a
military crackdown. A massacre of three thousand people from the eastern region living in the north occurred soon afterwards, and
stories of other attacks on Igbo Nigerians began to filter into Lagos.[80]
The ending of his novel had brought Achebe to the attention of military personnel, who suspected him of having foreknowledge
of the coup. When he received word of the pursuit, he sent his wife (who was pregnant) and children on a squalid boat through a
series of unseen creeks to the Igbo stronghold of Port Harcourt. They arrived safely, but
Christie suffered a miscarriage at the journey's end. Chinua rejoined them soon afterwards
in Ogidi. These cities were safe from military incursion because they were in the southeast, part of the region which would later
secede.[81]
Once the family had resettled in Enugu, Achebe and his friend Christopher Okigbo started a publishing house called Citadel Press, to improve the quality and
increase the quantity of literature available to younger readers. One of its first submissions was a story called How the Dog
was Domesticated, which Achebe revised and rewrote, turning it into a complex allegory for the country's political tumult.
Its final title was How the Leopard Got His Claws.[82] Years later a Nigerian intelligence officer told Achebe, "of all the things that came out of
Biafra, that book was the most important."[83]
Civil War
In May 1967 the southeastern region of Nigeria broke away to form the Republic of Biafra; in
July the Nigerian military attacked to suppress what it considered an unlawful rebellion. Achebe's partner, Christopher Okigbo, who had become a close friend of the family (especially of Achebe's son, young
Ikechukwu), volunteered to join the secessionist army while simultaneously working at the press. Achebe's house was bombed one
afternoon; Christie had taken the children to visit her sick mother, so the only victims were his books and papers. The Achebe
family narrowly escaped disaster several times during the war. Five days later, Christopher Okigbo was killed on the war's front
line.[84] Achebe was shaken considerably by the loss; his
poem "Dirge for Okigbo", originally written in the Igbo language in 1971 but translated to
English for later publication, is based on a traditional Igbo dirge.[85]
As the war intensified, the Achebe family was forced to leave Enugu for the Biafran capital of Aba. As the turmoil closed in, he continued to write, but most of his creative work during the war took the
form of poetry. The shorter format was a consequence of living in a war zone. "I can write poetry," he said, "something short,
intense more in keeping with my mood.… All this is creating in the context of our struggle."[86] Many of these poems were collected in his 1971 book Beware, Soul
Brother. One of his most famous, "Refugee Mother and Child", spoke to the suffering and loss that surrounded him. Dedicated
to the promise of Biafra, he accepted a request to serve as foreign ambassador, refusing an invitation from the Program of
African Studies at Northwestern University in the US. Achebe traveled to many
cities in Europe, including London, where he continued his work with the African Writers Series project at Heinemann.[87]
During the war, relations between writers in Nigeria and Biafra were strained. Achebe and John Pepper Clark had a tense confrontation in London over their respective support for opposing sides
of the conflict. Achebe demanded that the publisher withdraw the dedication of A Man of the People he had given to Clark.
Years later, their friendship healed and the dedication was restored.[88] Meanwhile, their contemporary Wole Soyinka was imprisoned for
meeting with Biafran officials, and spent many years in jail. Speaking in 1968, Achebe said: "I find the Nigerian situation
untenable. If I had been a Nigerian, I think I would have been in the same situation as Wole Soyinka is – in prison."[89]
The Nigerian government, under the leadership of General Yakubu Gowon, was backed by the
British government; the two nations enjoyed a vigorous trade partnership.
[90] Addressing the causes of the war in 1968, Achebe
lashed out at the Nigerian political and military forces that, to his mind, had forced Biafra to secede. He framed the conflict
in terms of the country's colonial past. The writer in Nigeria, he said, "found that the independence his country was supposed to
have won was totally without content.… The old white master was still in power. He had got himself a bunch of black stooges to do
his dirty work for a commission."[91]
Conditions in Biafra worsened as the war continued. In September 1968, the city of Aba fell to the Nigerian military and
Achebe once again moved his family, this time to Umuahia, where the Biafran government had also
relocated. He was chosen to chair the newly formed National Guidance Committee, charged with the task of drafting principles and
ideas for the post-war era.[92] In 1969, the group
completed a document entitled The Principles of the Biafran Revolution, later released as The Ahiara Declaration.[93]
In October of the same year, Achebe joined writers Cyprian Ekwensi and Gabriel Okara
for a tour of the United States to raise awareness about the dire situation in Biafra. They visited thirty college campuses and
conducted countless interviews. While in the southern US, Achebe learned for the first time of the "Igbo Landing", a true story
of a group of Igbo captives who drowned themselves in 1803 – rather than endure the brutality of slavery – after surviving
through the Middle Passage.[94][95] Although the group was
well-received by students and faculty, Achebe was "shocked" by the harsh realpolitik he met
in the US. At the end of the tour, he said that "world policy is absolutely ruthless and unfeeling".[96]
The beginning of 1970 saw the end of the state of Biafra. On 12 January, the military surrendered to Nigeria, and Achebe
returned with his family to Ogidi, where their home had been destroyed. He took a job at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and immersed himself once again in
academia. He was unable to accept invitations to other countries, however, because the Nigerian government revoked his passport
due to his support for Biafra.[97]
Postwar academia
After the war, Achebe helped start two magazines: the literary journal Okike, a forum for African art, fiction, and
poetry; and Nsukkascope, an internal publication of the University (motto: "Devastating, Fearless, Brutal and
True").[98] Achebe and the Okike committee later
established another cultural magazine, Uwa Ndi Igbo, to document and preserve the wisdom and knowledge of the
community.[99] In February 1972 he released Girls at
War, a collection of short stories ranging in time from his undergraduate days to the recent bloodshed. It was the 100th book
in Heinemann's African Writers Series.[100]
The University of Massachusetts Amherst offered Achebe a
professorship later that year, and the family moved to the United States. Their youngest daughter was displeased with her nursery
school, and the family soon learned that her frustration involved language. Achebe helped her face the "alien experience" (as he
called it) by telling
