Chinua Achebe - A Legend's Passing & Memory

Chronicled by Afronuts @ Friday, March 22, 2013

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. 

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