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Things
Fall Apart @ 50!
Achebe’s verdict:Young African writers have done well
By HENRY AKUBUIRO (akuhen@sunnewsonline.com)
Sunday,
April 20, 2008
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•Achebe
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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•Continued
from last week
Why did Professor Thomas Melone [a late Cameroonian
academic who borrowed the only existing complete manuscript
of TFA and never returned it] request the manuscript, and
did you know him personally?
Well he made himself very friendly. He came to see me because
he was writing a book, which was about Yeats. And he was a
very pleasant man, I must say. He asked me to loan this manuscript
to him, and I must say I did not have very much respect for
manuscripts then. I really had no sense of it…Once you
finish writing something, it’s over. And I also do not
like a lot of paper all over me, but now I know the value
more than I did then. So anyway I did give this manuscript
to Melone and then he just vanished. We were actually in [United]
States at the same time, but he wouldn’t reply letters,
and so it became clear to me that he wanted to hold on to
it for whatever it was worth.
If the manuscript were recovered today, where would
you want it preserved?
You know, many of my manuscripts are held at Harvard now,
but that’s probably part of my disenchantment with what
happened to this manuscript. I think I would say, if it happens
let’s look at it at that point—and not to say
“Take it here or take it there.” But if I had
my way, the manuscript should be in Nigeria. But to do that
would be to burn it because people don’t know the value,
the facilities would not be provided. So we’ve got a
lot of work to do before we can put our house in order.
If you had a chance at revising Things Fall Apart,
where you would your ax fall?
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t bother with revising.
Not even the incident with Chielo that some of us think that
maybe…
Well many of you may think whatever you like (general laughter).
Yeah, I mean have been told that I was a chauvinist. So people
have different readings, but I trust the book, that it has
enough spiritual power that it took care of many things that
people may not yet understand. So I would leave it exactly
as it is.
If you were to be a character in TFA, which one would
you be?
There isn’t one that is fully me, because I want everyone
to be different there. And so there are parts of me in different
people. Perhaps the most moderate one, because moderation
is important here. Okonkwo is a man of excess. I respect him
as a hero, but a flawed hero. But very interesting, nevertheless;
that’s why he is famous. Now, his friend, Obierika,
is more moderate, the kind of person who would keep the house
in order. And so if I had to be one person, if it’s
not Ezinma it probably would be Obierika.
One of the most important questions is about the influence
of this book in terms of maintaining our culture and our language.
Do you find that, as Africans, we are losing our touch with
our language and culture?
Yes, obviously this is one of the major—maybe the top—problems
that colonial rule has left for us. So, you have to learn
somebody else’s language, and if you wanted to be educated
then that was the language you were educated in. That story
we know very well. There is no point in going over it now,
or in fact weeping over it. I think we should just go to work,
find a way to curtail some of the harm that has been done
to us, and move on, as Americans would say.
What are your views about the African diaspora, the
Africans living abroad? Are we living up to our full potential,
are we doing what we’re supposed to be doing?
Well, I referred to this issue earlier on. What we lack is
a full understanding of who we are. And until that is absolutely
right, until we understand that we are one person, that when
we don’t talk about the diaspora, that wherever you
find this diaspora, whether it is in America, in Brazil, in
Africa itself, wherever it is the same story that they have.
It is the story of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. So wherever
you see an African diaspora person, you know this is a victim,
like myself, of that event. Until we realize how thorough
and complete it was planned to be. Baldwin said it was never
intended that he and I should ever meet, not to talk about
discussing anything. So we have a long way to go in the diaspora
getting our story straight. If the story is not straight,
then we will not be straight.
What do you think of today’s writers, the young
African writers coming up today?
Well, they are great, they’re good. There was a time
when it seemed as if the thing was drying up. But anybody
who knows about art would have known that it was waiting for
something to happen. I don’t know what it is, but we
seem to be back at work.
Do you have any personal favorites?
Well I wouldn’t mention any, because I would forget
my best friends…but since one of them is here, Okey
Ndibe is here, that’s a member of this generation. In
fact, there are now more than two or three generations since
my time. I think this is something that will go on.
What does Nigeria mean to you?
Nigeria is home. First of all, that’s what it means
to me: it’s home. It’s a very frustrating home,
a very annoying home, but it is my home. And if I had my way,
that’s where this interview would be happening. But
since it’s not gone that way, you know, I don’t
believe in weeping over something. I think it’s more
effective, more useful, to find what you can do rather than
what you can’t do. So, Nigeria has such a wonderful
possibility built into it, but it’s something it never
uses. Talent. It would rather use a half-baked person rather
than someone who is highly qualified. But that’s the
country I’ve got.
Any regrets about not receiving the national honors?
The reason I didn’t receive national honors is that
I didn’t want to receive national honors from Nigeria
as it was, and perhaps maybe still is today. I was tired of
hoping that someone would come up who would understand the
value of the position that we’ve earned because of our
education, or leadership, or whatever, and to apply it to
make our people happier and more prosperous.
What kind of legacy would you like to leave behind?
How would you like to be remembered?
Oh, just a nice guy. (Everyone laughs)
Back to TFA, whose 50th anniversary we are celebrating in
2008. It seems to me that Okonkwo’s problem is also
the predicament of his father, Unoka. We’re looking
at a lack of balance, a lack of moderation—even though
a man like Unoka has great wisdom. Could you speak about the
place of balance in Igbo metaphysics, in Igbo understanding
of the world?
Well, it is very, very important. It’s central to our
thinking, and I think the Igbo convey it in many different
ways. But the one that springs to my mind immediately is the
statement that wherever one thing stands, another thing will
stand beside it. That’s one thing and another thing,
you see. Nothing stands alone. If you see something that stands
alone, the Igbo people say “Run away,” because
that’s the worst possible danger—this thing that
doesn’t have anything near it, not even a necklace to
keep it company. By itself: that’s the Igbo idea of
evil. Alone, you see. So, it’s from there that the idea
of balance comes. One thing is good but something else is
also good. It says: become familiar with your home, but know
also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere
thinks his mother is the greatest cook. That’s one thing
they tell us. So balance is at the center of our idea of the
good life; the good world is a world in which there are many
kinds.
The other thing is: you’ve been accused by some critics
of harboring an unflattering view of women in your novels.
But to go back to again the concept of balance, reading through
TFA one sees the concept of spaces. We have male crop and
female crop, male functions and female functions, ceremonies
that are exclusive to women as well as ceremonies that are
exclusive to men. And so it seems to me that there is a very
intricate sense of balance in those arrangements. How do you
see the place of women within the society you depict?
There is a misreading of my fiction in that complaint. I think
many people think that what I’m doing is praising the
position of women. It’s not; in fact, it’s very
opposite. What I was doing was pointing out how unjust the
Igbo society is to women. And how better to explore it than
to make the hero of this story, Okonkwo…all his problems
are problems to do with the feminine. There’s nothing
else wrong with Okonkwo except his failure to understand that
the gentleness, the compassion that we associate with women
is even more important than strength.
Now, people don’t understand why I am showing these
women who are not in charge. I’m showing them that way
because that’s how it is in this society I want to change.
And that’s what Okonkwo was not able to learn, and I
want others after him to learn it: that women, compassion,
music…these things are as valuable—more valuable—than
war and violence.
One of the ironies is that Okonkwo the warrior misses out
on two points. One is that the most important deity in this
society, the earth goddess, is a female goddess. The other
is that Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves which has
supervisory powers over wars again has a female principle
at its core. Okonkwo, who is an extraordinary warrior, doesn’t
get that particular point and so continues to live under the
illusion that the only thing that is important is the male
and masculinity. Could you then talk about Unoka’s importance
in TFA?
Well Unoka, if you like, you like you can place him with the
women in the society. This is how Okonkwo saw him. But he’s
a very decent and nice person. Not successful in the sense
of wealth and resources, or ability to look after his family
and live big. All these things didn’t work for him.
One thing that worked for him was his flute, so in the view
of the Igbo people he was a failure. And this is in fact where
Okonkwo makes his biggest mistake, and Igbo culture is partly
responsible because Igbo culture makes a lot of strength and
power and success and Okonkwo heard this from his society.
He heard it all the time, you know, this importance of strength
and being manly and so on.
Now Igbo society does not talk so loudly about the other side,
but it talks gently. It’s there, but you’ve got
to make an effort to listen to hear it. If you are wearing
all these heavy things people wear in their ears nowadays,
you probably won’t hear it. But in a gentle voice the
society is saying, “But also remember your children,
but also remember the women, but also remember compassion.”
Why does it say, “Well if the gods have decided that
this boy (Ikemefuna] should die, we can’t stop them
but I won’t be there”? So cowardice is even a
value. The Igbo society is saying that to Okonkwo. It is not
only in the machete that there is virtue. There is virtue
in sitting down quietly and contemplating.
Unoka is something of a poet in a sense, certainly in his
use of language. He is also a dramatist in the way he dismisses
Okoye, his creditor. And there is something of a philosopher
in him as well. In a sense, you’ve created an artist
figure in him, a man who in a different time and society would
sit down and write witty and interesting books—and be
successful. But he lived in a society that required that,
in addition to being a good artist, being good at your flute
and music, you must also be a good farmer and brave warrior.
Did you deliberately want Unoka to be that artist figure within
this society, maybe a wise man, but wise in his own wretched
way?
Obviously, yes. I mean that’s why he’s there,
I guess. The way I write is not to say, “Okay, where
is an artist figure to put in here?” The story dictates
all that. Even what we call it, which is a way of defining
in a precise way what is perhaps loose and vague and so on,
about a character—all that is part of your story, your
story-making. And I think one learns how to include them without
even talking about them as if they were abstractions. This
is what you find in a complete life, the life of a society
that is truly alive.
TFA has become the most widely read, most widely translated
novel in African literature. Have you reflected at all on
the impact that TFA specifically but also your total oeuvre
have had on other African writers?
Yes. I haven’t given much thought in the sense of writing
anything about it. For one thing, it’s a little risky,
you know. Some people started talking about the Achebe generation.
It’s not everybody who wants to be in the school of
Achebe.
Some of my best friends became writers. I’m thinking
particularly, for instance, now of John Munonye, who was my
classmate. Now there’s a joke that was told me by another
friend, Francis Ellah—about himself and John Munonye.
Francis said they thought, after the publication of TFA, “Why
can’t we be writing a novel, be novelists?” So
they decided they were going to begin. So they bought lots
of pencils and paper and they were to begin this weekend.
And so John went into one room, Francis to the other, and
they started writing. The way Francis put it, probably not
exactly, was that by the end of the day he gave up and John
continued.
Interesting anecdote...
So it wasn’t even the younger generation. These were
people of my own age. And many of them, quite a number, did
take up writing, but of course they would write differently.
And by the way, the generation of Cyprian Ekwensi was then
the background, the older generation than ourselves. He had
followed a different path in writing, but he was there. So
it wasn’t altogether an accident. Amos Tutuola was there;
again a different path. Some pundits said, “Oh that’s
how African literature will be,” but no single person
has ever copied Tutuola because there is just no way you can
get it. That is his own. So we are lucky. There is really
talent in our culture, a lot of talent, and it’s not
an accident that Nigeria, in the past, has all these traditions
– the Nok culture, the Igbo-Ukwu culture, the Ife culture,
the Benin culture – and all of them very rich. And all
we need is to sit down quietly and make something of it.
TFA and Okonkwo have been with us for 50 years. Has
Okonkwo been living with you these 50 years, has he been with
you, and how is he doing?
Yeah, it’s interesting how you put it. He has, and what
I feel towards him is a sense of wonder and pity. Pity is
probably not a good word because Okonkwo is a very dignified
and proud person and would not like anyone to pity him. But
I am sort of concerned that a major aspect of our human experience
has to be suffering and failing to reach where you set out
to go because of all kinds of things on the way. One day somebody
came to me in the hospital after I had this accident, and
the question he asked me was, “Why you? Why would this
happen to you?” So I said—I didn’t think
twice—I said to him, “Do you have an idea of somebody
else to whom it should have happened?” What I was saying
is that the world is tragic by nature. And that’s why
tragic stories appeal to me, far more than happy and comic
stories. Both the tragic and the comic are there in our lives,
but somehow the tragic one, the Okonkwo kind of story, is
the one that speaks most to us.
You’ve made a personal effort to make sure we
don’t forget the late poet, Christopher Okigbo, who
was your close friend. Does Okigbo live on because of your
efforts or because he left behind works that still speak to
us?
My son was two years or three years old when Okigbo died,
and when I came back – this is during the Biafran war
– I just traveled from Enugu to my home to announce
to my family that I heard on the radio that Okigbo had been
killed. My son, Ike, said, “Daddy, don’t let him
die!” The reason was that Okigbo had made friends with
him. Okigbo had friends everywhere, children, old people.
I remember that whenever he came to visit us, this little
boy would hold his hand and try to break it and Okigbo would
be pretending to be in pain crying. They would be struggling
this way and Okigbo would say over his head, “Children
are so wicked.” And so that’s the boy who said,
“Don’t let him die.” I then decided to publish
something called Don’t Let Him Die, an anthology of
poetry by friends of Okigbo—or anyone who wanted to
contribute.
There was no plan which would work unless the subject, in
this case Okigbo, had something of interest to say. His life
was so romantic in a way, his life and death was so extraordinary.
It just seemed so unlike anybody else you knew. So that’s
the material for the kind of history that we have of him.
But there is also the profound nature of his poetry. So it
is both his life and his works.
There’s the moment in TFA when the District
Commissioner says the story of Okonkwo is interesting, but
he wants to give it perhaps a paragraph in his own book. Did
you consciously write that as irony…?
Yeah, I think so. I mean it’s clearly…it’s
not very fine irony, it’s so crude.
You think it’s crude?
_Yeah, for the man who said it. But that’s how they
figured out the colonial subject.
I read your bio and you were a very savvy young man, the way
they described you in those days in the 70s, the way you dressed,
and all that. When I heard of this accident, it’s been
worrying me, and I’m sure it’s worried a lot of
your fans: What exactly has this accident meant to you as
a writer and person?
Do you think you could have produced more than you’ve
done…?
Well, it’s done those things you’ve just indicated.
I was telling you the story of the fellow who said, Why should
it happen to me? And my answer is “Why not?” And
that’s really what I believe. Look at my fiction. Okonkwo
is strong-headed, and wouldn’t listen to advice, and
it’s a trap. And what happens? He comes to a sticky
end. Then I say, okay, let me try a different kind of African,
an intellectual kind of person. So I go to Ezeulu in Arrow
of God. He is a priest, a philosopher, and what happens to
him? He comes to a sticky end. So there’s no way out.
What came to us—in Igbo they say that what came to Nte—Nte
is a small insect—the Igbo say that what came to it
is bigger than it. What was caught in his trap – Nte
went and set a trap – and something bigger than himself
was caught in that trap. So what does Nte do? So there is
no way, there is no short answer to the problem posed to us
from the moment the initiative was taken from us and we lost
our freedom and independence.
How can literature illuminate the African even human
crisis?
Oh, there were people who had a very, very rough treatment
in the world. They are known as black people. And they were
fighting or struggling to make sense of what happened to them.
Someone said to them, “Why should this happen to you,
why you?” And they said, “Well, that’s the
way the world is.” We must find a way out, we must face
this problem, face our history. When a people have a history
that is embittered—Anthills of the Savannah—an
embittered history, we’ve got a task on our hands. We’ve
got a big task. And even Nigeria, impossible as it seems,
we’ll someday get under control. We won’t keep
having retired generals and so on much longer. The thing is
not to lose hope. Despair is the worst possible suggestion.
I think we must struggle and keep fighting.
Over the next fifty years, will TFA continue to speak
to us about this struggle?
Well if it does I mean if you find it useful, but it’s
not because I said so it is simply that people found that
it was speaking to them. If it stops speaking to people then
people will stop reading it.
When you were writing TFA, which was the day you felt, yes,
this was a book and I trust it?
Well, I think it was the day I finished. But you see, the
thing with writing, my kind of writing, is that you never
really finish. When I thought I had finished, Bisi Onabanjo,
with whom I was sharing accommodation in London we both went
to the BBC and a friend he knew I had this manuscript, and
he said to me, “Why don’t you show it to this?”
The man was a BBC producer who was a novelist, Gilbert Phelps.
I was very shy, but Bisi kept saying, “Show him.”
So after a while I took this manuscript and I told him I was
writing. And he looked as writers look if you bring them a
manuscript. He wasn’t hostile, but he wasn’t exactly
impressive.
But he accepted very polite. Then Bisi and I, we went on some
British Council tour of three or four days. One day I came
back from an outing and there was a message for me that said
one Gilbert Phelps called and left his number. So I said,
well, if he doesn’t like the book, would he make a phone
call? Wouldn’t he wait for me to return? So maybe he
likes it. So I would call him. That was the first response
I had and to cut a long story short, he liked the book. He
recommended his publishers to see it.
Meanwhile, his publishers saw it and they were ready to start.
I said, “No, the book is not ready.” I had made
a mistake in thinking that I could have three generations
in one book. And yet it’s not a big book. So it is too
thin to carry this weight. That version of TFA had Okonkwo,
Okonkwo’s children’s generation, and a third generation
so bringing it to today. And now I realized just so suddenly
that there are three books. The first part is Okonkwo. So
that’s what I’m going to do. And then after that
I’ll see what happens. And so I rewrote the book with
this emphasis on Okonkwo’s generation, not his son.
Eventually I wrote No Longer At Ease, the story of Okonkwo’s
son. But what about my father’s generation? That one
is still waiting to be done. So, see, there is no quick answer
to your question. If it’s working, go on. If it’s
not, then try something else.
Of all your books, which one got you into the most
struggle?
I think it’s A Man of the People. One day I came home,
I think it was a Sunday actually, I went out and came back
– I was then director of broadcasting. My staff, two
young fellows from the North who were in charge of the Hausa
Programs—they called me and they said, “Soldiers
are looking for you. They said they want to see which is stronger,
your pen or their gun.” So I picked up the phone and
dialed Victor Badejo who was the director general. I said
“Victor, what is this story?” He said, “Where
are you?” I said, “I’m at home.” He
said, “Take Christie and children and leave.”
So I took my family, Christie and the two children, got into
the car and began to look for somewhere where we could hide.
So that was A Man of the People. That was the closest.
Would you ever return to Nigeria? If yes, under what
conditions?
Well, the conditions, I don’t really ask very much.
What I would like to see is a situation in which if I wanted
to buy an antibiotic or something, and I went to the pharmacy,
it would be an antibiotic that you buy. And that all the doctors
we train will not be leaving Nigeria and practicing in America
and Britain and so on, but some would stay in Nigeria. Including
my son, his whole class in medical school is here the entire
class—there is not one in Nigeria.
If it were possible to return to life again, in what
form would you want to return?
The same. [Laughter]. This is the one I know.
What do you think about Fela who had almost the same
impact in terms of music as you’ve had in literature?
You know, he once said I was the only genuine professor. [Laughter].
Well I thought very highly of him. It’s a pity his life
was so rough that he just couldn’t survive. But he delivered
the message he came to deliver with his music. Like Okigbo,
it wasn’t that he didn’t know that what he was
going to do was very dangerous. He knew, and tried very hard
this is very interesting for me to deceive me about where
he was going. He told me he was going to Europe, because we
were working together on publishing. If he had told me he
was going to join the army, I would have said, “Well,
have you thought about it, and what about our publishing?”
So he told me he was going to Europe, and it was later I heard.
By then he was already in uniform. I am not saying I would
stop anybody from what they want to do, but I would say let’s
discuss it.
You have people who influenced you in literature you’ve
talked about Yeats’ poem. Who influenced you in your
town of Ogidi? Who was the one trusted adult, or uncle, or
friend you confided in? Or asked questions?
No, I didn’t have one adult that I confided in. The
whole village was set up to be an institution. So that if
you were just listening like children – you were not
supposed to join in the conversation, but you would be around
– and you would hear people, many of them. The people
who impressed me were those who could just deflate a problem
by their words, you know. I saw that several times. At one
of the procedures for engaging a girl and then paying the
dowry and all of that, if you listened to that…One day
I heard a mischievous man say about a girl who was just about
to be married—and he was telling those who were coming
to marry her—that she has not been trained. “So
when you go home you will start training her.” This
was to harm the girl and her father. But an old man from the
other side wouldn’t wait for the girl’s father
to answer. The old man from the side that had come to marry
the girl said, “Don’t worry, we have not been
trained ourselves. Marriage is each one trains the other.”
When last did you read TFA, and did it surprise you
in any way? Did you learn something from reading it?
A: I haven’t read it all that lately. What I’m
doing now is not reading it really; it’s translating,
which takes the joy out of reading. But when I dipped into
it I dip into it I feel it’s all right. I think it said
what it wants to say. If I make up my mind that I want to
change it or to edit it, of course you would find something
to do. You can change is to was. (Laughter). But it’s
not in that caliber now. If there is any spelling mistake,
it can stay. (Laughter).
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