Chinua Achebe, one of the Africa’s most celebrated writers and
author of the classic novel Things Fall Apart, has passed on.
According to
SaharaReporters, Achebe, a Fisher Professor of Literature at Brown University,
died last night in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Professor Achebe had
been sick for some time.
He was 82 years old
Achebe is one of the
African writers that inspired me into writing. I once wanted to do my final
year project on him way back in the university but I discovered that other
students had picked him up as a case study for their project. Being one who
hated following the crowd I had to look for another writer for case study for
my project.
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| A younger Achebe with his book - Things Fall Apart |
I'll
forever remember reading his books in secondary school and having to
answer to questions on them during exams. Things Fall Apart was the first
African Writers Series book I first came across as a young child when I was
still trying to cut my teeth at writing in my very early teens. Later I would
go on to read others like No
Longer at Ease, Arrow of God (also
very popular in secondary school too) and Anthills
of the Savannah. I remember I took time to study Anthills because I
wanted to learn a certain way Achebe wrote. I actually read his books to know
how to write rather than just enjoy the stories.
So I can say he’s
been a kind of mentor in writing. He’ll be greatly missed.
And like I tweeted –
I read his books as a young student yesterday…today I’m reading his obituary as
an adult and a father.
RIP CHINUA ACHEBE
He sure would be remembered dearly...may he RIP.
ReplyDeleteLike you, he inspired me so much
ReplyDeleteSuch a loss