Fwd: Re Tribute: To Chinua Achebe, A Tribute

[John N. Oriji]

Tribute: To Chinua Achebe A Tribute


The world-wide tributes paid to Prof. Chinua Achebe, are manifestations
of his heroic accomplishments in African literature, embodying unusual insights
in history, politics, the social sciences, and other dimensions of the human condition. Prof.
Achebe was reputed to be a very simple,frank, and humane scholar-sterling qualities that
are manifested in his publications, from the world-renowned novel,"Things Fall Apart" to his last
and contentious work, titled, "There was a Country Called Biafra." Prof. Achebe was not only a colossus,
who occupied a front seat among the world's literary specialists, but also a very eminent
social critic. Hence, in keeping with the canons of his profession, he cared for the common people,
shunning the arrogance, high level of greed and corruption, and the Machiavellian principles of some members
of the Nigerian political class.

Some of us who were associated with Prof. Achebe in the 1970s, when he was teaching at the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) remember his candid, short and simple response to a student who inquired
about how he could become an Achebe, and acquire commanding heights and reputation in African literature:
"It's not going to be easy for you to be Achebe", because I belong to a different generation from yours.
Prof. Achebe's response which was based on his uncanny knowledge and understanding of the
hard and didactic lessons of history, are helping a younger generation of Nigerian writers to address different
issues relevant to the the dynamics of their society

Both in Nigeria and US, Prof. Achebe was seen as an institution. In fact, "The Achebe School of Literature",
spans across Africa, Europe, North America, and other continents, where some students of the school almost
"venerated" him as if he were a god, an immortal who would not pass away. Prof Achebe is not an immortal,
but his towering legacies will certainly remain immortal.

John N. Oriji
Professor of African & Modern World History
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, California.