Is Chimamanda the new
Achebe?
•Literary community reacts
By HENRY
AKUBUIRO (akuhen@sunnewsonline.com)
Sunday,
June 17, 2007
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•Achebe
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Against
the backdrop of the comparisons being made by a school of thought between Chimamanda
Adichie and Chinua Achebe, Sunday Sun sought the opinion of some leading Nigerian
writers from across the globe.
Though the writers are thrilled by her
extraordinary literary achievement, they see the writers as two different people
with different personalities and achievements that cannot be compared. Niyi Osundare,
New Orleans, USA
Achebe is Achebe. Chimamanda is Chimamanda: two vital links in
a long literary chain. None is a reincarnation of the other. Let’s allow
Chimamanda her own autonomous identity. The prize is well deserved for a vastly
talented, conscientious writer. Keep your level head, beautiful sister. Keep your
fiction close to the fact of our lives. There is something so enduring, so sage-like
about your voice. Thanks for this bright streak in our era of darkness. Now forget
the prize and move on to the next story. More power to your pen. Tanure
Ojaide, Northern Carolina, USA
There can be no new Achebe, more so he is very
much alive. Still, Chimamanda Adichie is a significant new voice that is blazing
a new trail in fiction writing as Achebe did in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Chimamanda is Chimamanda by her own right. Adichie makes every Nigerian, albeit
African, proud with her creative talent. Winning the Orange Prize with her new
novel (from a list of strong writers) draws attention to new African writings
as a force to reckon with. I am particularly impressed by her self-confidence
and modesty. She definitely will go very far with her writing. Adichie has contributed
immensely to the African literary renaissance. All of us, young and older writers,
should congratulate Chimamanda on putting herself and Nigerian literature in the
limelight. This is the sort of happy news that we need to hear about our fellow
writers. We should all celebrate. Chris Abani, New York, USA
No, Chimamanda
is not the new Achebe. As flattering a comparison as that is, and one can see
where the work inevitably dialogues with Achebe's (as all Nigerian novelist must
as some point), Chimamanda is the new Chimamanda. She is a writer in her own right,
with a very clear voice all her own, and an aesthetic that is at once highly individual
at the same time, very much within the tradition that we all come from. Chimamanda's
Orange Prize is well deserved. When a writer focuses on craft and content, with
integrity, in keeping with a deep tradition, then excellence is inevitable. I
heartily congratulate her on this honour and many more will still come. Akachi
Ezeigbo, London, UK
Chimamanda is herself and I cannot regard her as a new
Achebe. She is a unique fresh voice in Nigeria's burgeoning literary tradition.
But you could say, of course, that she is building on the structure left by masters
like Achebe (who has just won the Man Booker Prize for his overall work. great
news, eh? What an achievement for Achebe!). I am delighted that Chimamanda Adichie
won the 2007 Orange Prize. I believe she deserved to win, for I read the other
shortlisted books – that is the advantage of being here in the UK at the
moment. They are all excellent novels, but hers is the best among them. Nigeria
should be proud of her. I think she is an inspiration not only to Nigeria's younger
writers but also to the older and established writers. I wish her more success
in the future. Hope Eghagha, Lagos, Nigeria
Chimamanda has proved by
her second novel that Purple Hibiscus was not a fluke; the Orange Prize has confirmed
once again her skill and competence in the art of the narrative. But it also underscores
the need for the publishing industry to be revived in Nigeria. With real publishing
and marketing dead, how can Nigerians at home get the type of exposure which Chimamanda
currently has? If she had remained in Nsukka, would she have won the prize? I
congratulate Chimamanda and use the opportunity to remind the powers-that-be in
Nigeria that it is not the much-touted science that has brought fame to Nigeria;
it is literature which they have no respect for. A thinking continent would have
replaced Heinemann with a sponsored outfit when the former closed shop on the
African Writers Series. This is the time to return to the drawing board and find
out where the rain began to beat us. Books written by Nigerians at home need to
be marketed abroad. Uche Nduka, Bremen, Germany
Bloody hell No! Achebe
is inimitable and irreplaceable. However, this is a wonderful time for contemporary
Nigerian literature. This prize, in a small way, celebrates the ebullience, relevance,
and world reach of the literature being created by us. It should not be overcelebrated,
however. There is still too much work waiting for us to do. Chimamanda deserves
to be hailed for Half of a Yellow Sun. No matter how fitting the present noise
is regarding the Orange Prize, we should all aim higher, and we should not be
prize-obsessed. I lift my toast! Maxim Uzoatu, Lagos, Nigeria
Chimamanda
is Chimamanda, and not the new Achebe. There is no need for a new Achebe; the
great man has done his work and he is inimitable. Russia did not aspire to get
the new Tolstoy or the new Dostoyevsky. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is blazing her
own trail; and I am drinking to her great health!
I was in my home state of
Anambra, a beloved state I share with our beloved Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, when
the news of the Orange Prize triumph came my way. In the company of my younger
brother, Isidore Emeka Uzoatu, author of the novel, Vision Impossible. I threw
an instant party in which one of our guests passed the night on his vomit! We
were that gone in happiness for our own dear Chimamanda, the very owner of the
printed word! It's a pity I've never ever met her in person, but, as the one and
only god of poetry, I plan forthwith to meet her (and her people) and promptly
pay her bride price! Yes-o, in Igboland, a man with only one wife is never addressed
as Nna-anyi (Our Father)! Thanks, darling Chimamanda, for making me Nna-anyi! Obiwu
Iwuanyanwu, Ohio, USA
The winning of the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's new novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, is a matter for
serious reflection. Now we will have to address the significance of Adichie in
contemporary Nigerian literary praxis. We will have to ask why Nigerian literature
has been in the doldrums since Wole Soyinka's Nobel Prize in 1986 and Ben Okri's
Booker Prize in 1991. What made the writing of the third generation's Chinua Achebe,
Wole Soyinka, and Christopher Okigbo as globally commanding as the writing of
the first generation's Olaudah Equiano? What made the writing of the second generation
as weak as the writing of the fourth generation and much of the fifth generation?
Adichie
has rediscovered the magic of great art and serious discourse. She has eschewed
pretentiousness and self-flagellation; she has taken the bull by the horn, called
a spade a spade, mocked national injustice and travesty, and given hope to the
faint in spirit. She has not asked for charity and has not hidden her disgust
for the debasing mess of porridge in which many self-adulating "writers"
have stewed themselves.
Adichie prides herself as a child who was raised in
the faculty house at Nsukka which was previously occupied by Achebe and Michael
J. C. Echeruo. She has carved her art as "the branch of a giant fennel"
which was the fountain of Achebe, Soyinka, and Okigbo's discursive thriller. Like
the three elders she has drawn her subjects on a historical national dilemma.
Her direct model in Africa is none other than Nadine Gordimer.
As Achebe says
of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, Adichie has washed her hands and dined with elders.
I toast Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's winning of the 2007 Orange Prize in honor of
the one who "came almost fully made." I toast for the re-centering of
serious discourse in Nigerian and African literature. I toast for the global acclaim
of Half of a Yellow Sun and the emergence of Biafran Babies literature! Unoma
Azuah, Tennessee, USA
Adichie's Orange prize is great news for Nigerian literature
and writing. I believe the award would open more doors for Nigerian writers, especially
women writers. I hope we see this award as an opportunity to work even harder.
Kudos to Chimamanda, she has done us proud! Denja Abdulahi, General
Secretary,
ANA, Abuja, Nigeria
Chimamanda may end up being the new Achebe because
she is a very good storyteller like Achebe. Indeed, it is great and gratifying
to see a Nigerian writer being held up again for world acclaim.Chimamanda has
come up to be a writer of immense talent that you can hardly ignore. The good
thing about her writing is that she tells our own stories in ways that the world
can connect with. That shows that there are still many edifying stories about
us out there begging to be told. Her triumph also sends a message to our leaders
and those who allocate resources in Nigeria to pay the requisite attention to
the arts, and stop the sale of our national heritage in the name of privatization
or commercialization. Ogaga Ifowodo, New York, USA
The human mind’s
predilection for comparisons is understandable, since we try to understand the
new way of the old, by the reassuring grid of that which we already know. But
to go as far as saying that Chimamnda Adichie is the new Chinua Achebe, I must
say, boggles my mind. Regarding the mere comparison, I would imagine that any
Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda not excepted, would be gratified to be compared
to Achebe. That is praise of the highest order. Moreover, in the good old African
way, Chimamanda is Achebe’s daughter.
But Chimamanda is not the new Achebe.
Making that claim when the old man is still alive is, to say the least, rather
disturbing. First, it assumes that literarily speaking, Achebe is “dead”,
spent. Yet we know that until the writer breathes his last, he is not done. The
late British poet, W.H. Auden, put it more memorably: the work of man is never
completed. At any rate, we hear that Achebe remains busy at his forge and we do
expect him to give us the benediction of a few more unforgettable tales before
it is his time to join his ancestors. No none should hasten the journey! As far
as comparisons go, one thing is clear: there are bound to be thematic and stylistic
affinities between Achebe and adichie, as between any number of Nigerian writers
probing the same question in the same medium from the same sub-national cultural
millieu.It is only natural, which is why we speak of “tradition” -
in culture, generally speaking, literature. |
