| As TFA @ 50 kicks off
in Lagos…Panelists ask: Why
has Achebe not won Nobel Prize?
By Johnson Ndukwe
Sunday,
April 27, 2008
|
•Achebe
Photo: Sun News Publishing
|
|
It is a festival in seven cities: The Nigerian section of
the world wide celebrations marking 50 years of the classic
- Things Fall Apart - written by Chinua Achebe.
And Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Ogidi, Awka and Nsukka
will be centres of this literary feast. Themed ‘Telling
the World the African Story’, the first leg of the celebrations
in the country kicked off penultimate Saturday, at the National
Theatre, Lagos. Abuja marked its version last Thursday.
The anniversary, organised by the Association of Nigerian
Authors, (ANA), the crowd of Lagos writers and scholars such
as the cultural activist, Toyin Akinosho of CORA, ex-Thisday
Arts Editor, Mr. Layiwole Adeniji, poet and journalist, Jossy
Idam, the writer, Mr. Toni Kan, the poet, Maxim Uzoatu, Dr.
Wale Okediran, president of the writers’ body and his
scribes, Denga Abdulahi and Hycinth Obunseh.
There was also was a strong female representation led by the
former president of Women Writers’ Association, Mrs.
Mobolaji Adenubi, the novelist Kaine Agary, author of Yellow
Yellow, co-founder of WRITA, Ms Omowunmi Segun, who is daughter
of the writer, Mabel Segun, as
well as one of the founding members of ANA, Chief Segun Olusola,
a former ambsador and playwright, The Village Head Master
which ran the longest as a TV series on the NTA.
There were the scholars represented by the CEO of The Theatre,
Dr. Ahmed Yerima and Dr. Krishna, both of Unilag. Both were
at the panel with Uzoatu, editor of the ANA Review, Things
Fall at 50, as well as Agary.
Chilke Ofili, ANA Lagos boss, moderated the forum. But it
was also a moment to remember fallen literary heroes such
as Cyprian Ekwensi.
Olusola paid tribute to Ekwensi as a man who loved Lagos and
wanted very much to live his life at the junction of Ojuelegba.
He expressed delight that ANA has named a place after him
in Abuja. The FCT, Abuja named a cultural centre after Ekwensi
this year. For Olusola, this makes him relax at the TFA event.
But he prayed that ANA would do everything possible to make
the country a resting place for Achebe to return and say,
“I am home. I am fulfilled.”
The former ambassador also wanted ANA to help make Achebe
come for a special visit. But the event was basically a talk-show,
a fomat. After the introduction, Ofili asked the panelists
why they read Things Fall Apart (TFA). Yerima said he had
to read TFA for its many purposes, academic and leisure.
Krishna used a story to illustrate her encounter with the
book.
It was about a child and a man walking in a seashore. The
child heard a song and asked for the meaning of that song
which his father told her. The excitement was in the discovery
of a song, for the child.
Such a discovery, Krishna said, is what TFA is to her. Her
mother had given her the book. Her mother was a visiting professor
at the University of Caliofornia.
But Krishna herself teaches at the UNILAG’s faculty
of medical sciences. But she likes literature, she said. She
wondered why Achebe has not won the Nobel prize.
“I don’t know why Achebe has not won the Nobel
Prize,” she added.
Krishna was supported by Yerima who said that Achebe should
have won the prize more then 20 years ago. The book, like
Arrow of God, he continued, is like drama.
For him, TFA is very engaging and one never stops reading
it until the last page. It is like the story of the young
girl and the song, he reminded the audience of Krishna’s
story.
“In drama, we see the novel as art. I can adapt it because
of the language, anytime,” Yerima said. The language,
he went on, is captivating. He remarked that were he to produce
the novel, would not change the novel unlike Biyi Bandele
who had problems in terms of
cutting down the cast in the book in his dramatic reproduction
of TFA.
For the Indian, “the school I attended has an African
club.” she had had an earlier encounter with African
writers and political activists. Oliver Tambo was in the same
club with her mom and even the secretary of CORESAW was her
mother’s class mate. But much of the literature she
read was written by whites.
“I am surprised that Achebe has not been given the
Nobel,” she went on. She however explained that Okonkwo
is a strong character. But he was trying to overcome his father’s
deficiencies.” She added that everybody wants to outgrow
their past, as Okonkowo did. “We always want to hide
something about our past,” she said.
For Agary, Achebe did not overwrite to describe the local
environment. “The richer, the merrier,” said the
award-winning novelist. For her, any medium used to reach
the audience is all right.
But Yerima added at 28, Achebe was comfortable with what he
wanted to do. Yerima remembered a play he wrote at the Obafemi
Awolowo University (OAU).
He had visited Liberia for a week and wrote a play on that
visit. He showed it to his then lecturer, Prof. Wole Soyinka.
The professor had asked him how long he spent in Liberia and
he replied, a week.
Soyinka therefore advised him told concentrate on Nigeria
which he knew best. Soyinka had told him, “Deep it down.”
Achebe had done the same by writing what he knows best,”
Yerima told the literary crowd.
Akeem Lasisi, the oral poetry performer, with a number of
award winning books and CDs to show for his effort, stood
up and performed some praise songs for the novelist, both
in Yoruba and in English. |
