AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHINUA ACHEBE
Chinua Achebe
Key facts | |
Birth name | Albert Chinualumogu Achebe |
Birth | November 16, 1930 Ogidi ( Nigeria ) |
Death | March 21 , 2013 (aged 82) Boston ( United States ) |
Core business | Writer |
distinctions | Margaret Wrong Memorial Prize(1959) Nigerian National Trophy for Literature (1960) Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1972 and 1979) Nigerian National Merit Award(1979) Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2002) Man Booker International Prize(2007) |
| Author | |
| Genres | Roman New Poem |
Primary works
· The world is falling apart
·
Chinua Achebe, born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on November 16, 1930in Ogidi and died onMarch 21st 2013in Boston, is an English- speaking Nigerian writer. Novelist and poet, he begins with The Falling World ( Things Fall Apart ) which is, with The Malaise ( No Longer at Ease ), his main work.
Summary
· 1Biography
· 2Work
· 3Quotes
· 4Work
o 4.1Novels
o 4.2News collections
o 4.3Poetry
o 4.4Books of childhood and youth literature
o 4.5Trials and other publications
· 5Distinctions
· 6References
· 7Appendices
o 7.1Bibliography
o 7.2Related Articles
o 7.3External links
Biography
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe - he changes his name during his studies for a classic Igbo name - was born in eastern Nigeria. A fifth of six children, his parents, both Ibos: Isaiah Okafor and Janet Achebe, are fervent Christians.
Good student, Achebe obtains a scholarship and studies at the Government College Umuahia (a city that is often in his books) from 1944 to 1947, then at the University of Ibadan from 1948 to 1953, when he gets his BA degree. Before joining the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), Achebe made some trips to Africa and the United States and worked for some time as an English teacher. He trained at the BBC and began working at NBC in 1954.
In 1958 he published his first novel, Things Fall Apart ( Things Fall Apart ). The September 10, 1961He married Christie Chinwé Okolie with whom he had two children: Chinelo, Cidi, Nwando, and Ikechukwu. In 1962, he participated in a controversial conference on African writers at Makerere University ( Uganda ) and founded that same year a collection entitled AFRICAN at an English publisher.
In the late 1960s, he distinguished himself in the Biafra conflict, during which he supported the secessionist party of Colonel Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu.
He was appointed in 1972 editor of the periodical Obike. In 1987, the leader of one of the main northern Muslim parties asked him to be his deputy. He agrees to show his compatriots that it is possible, from the east of the country, to join a party of the North, led by a mullah.
After teaching at many British, American, and Nigerian universities, he is a professor at Bard College, New York, and then at Brown University.
In 1990, an accident nails him in a wheelchair.
He dies on March 21, 2013, in a Boston hospital.
Work
Things Fall Apart
His work is a profound meditation on colonialism. His novels place African heroes at the crossroads of two worlds: a Western world with abstract rationality, without justice, and an Africa whose disqualified traditional values make its subjects handicapped for the new times. This is one of the most famous authors of African English-speaking. This earned him several times to be approached for the Nobel Prize for literature.
The world collapses, also titled Tout colanders en français ( Things Fall Apart, 1958) describes an Africa facing the shock of the arrival of Europeans, a carrier of ancient values that Achebe wants to put forward. This book has a circulation of 400,000 since 1969 and reached three million copies in 1987. It is translated into 45 languages.
In the Termitières de la Savane ( Anthills of the Savannah ), he describes an Africa taken by corruption, the false position of intellectuals, where the woman is the future. Nadine Gordimer analyzed this novel.
Malay ( No Longer at Ease ) occurs in Nigeria at Umuofia and Lagos in the 1950s, before independence.
In 1972, a critic wrote that Achebe, as well as Armah and Okara, are opening up "new ways to the African novel", notably by denouncing the evils of African society. But, given the political situation, they must disguise their criticism: hence their tendency to "social and political satire". "
Quotations
"Authors like Ernest Hemingway have portrayed the black African population as savages and are the cause of immense blasphemy. That's why I decided to try to write books where the characters were Africans as I know them. "
In 1965:
"For my part, I would be more than satisfied if my novels could already show my readers that their past - with all its imperfections - was not a long night of savagery from which they were delivered by the first Europeans acting on behalf of God. "
Work
Novels
· Things Fall Apart (1958)
Published in French under the title The world collapses, Paris, Éditions Présence Africaine, 1966; reissue in a new translation under the title All collapses, Arles, Actes Sud, coll. "African Letters", 2013 ( ISBN 978-2-330-02441-3 )
· No Longer at Ease (1960)
Published in French under the title Le Malaise, Paris, Éditions Présence africaine, coll. "Writings", 1974
· Arrow of God (1964)
Published in French under the title La Flèche de Dieu, Paris, Éditions Présence africaine, coll. "Writings", 1978 ( ISBN 2-7087-0359-5 )
· A Man of the People (1966)
Published in French under the title Le Démagogue, Dakar, New African Editions, 1977 ( ISBN 2-7236-0175-7 )
· Anthills of the Savannah (1988)
Published in French under the title Les Termitières de la Savane, Paris, P. Belfond Publishing, coll. "Foreign Literature", 1990 ( ISBN 2-7144-2447-3 ) ; reprint, Paris, UGE, coll. "10/18. Foreign Domain ' no 2479 1994 ( ISBN 2-264-01808-9 )
News collections
· Marriage Is a Private Affair (1952)
· Death Men's Path (1953)
· The Sacrificial Egg and Other Stories (1962)
· Civil Peace (1971)
· Girls at War and Other Stories (1973)
Published in French under the title Femmes en Guerre et Autres Nouvelles, Paris, Hatier, coll. "Black Pocket World", 1985 ( ISBN 2-218-05735-2 )
· African Short Stories (1984)
Poetry
· Beware, Soul-Brother, and Other Poems (1971) - 1972 Commonwealth Award
· Christmas at Biafra and Other Poems (1973)
· Do not Let Him Die: An Anthology of Memorial Poems for Christofer Okigbo (1978) - publisher in collaboration with Dubem Okafor
· Aka Weta: An Anthology of Igbo Poetry (1982) - co-author
· Annotate Africa (1998)
Literature of childhood and youth
· Chike and the River (1966)
· How the Leopard Got His Claws (1972) - with John Iroaganachi
· Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975)
· The Flute (1975)
· The Drum (1978)
Testing and other publications
· An Image of Africa: Conrad's Racism "Heart of Darkness" (1975)
· Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975)
· The Trouble With Nigeria (1984)
· Hopes and Impediments (1988)
· Home & Exile (2000)
· The Education of a British-Protected Child (2009)
Published in French under the title Education of a Child Protected by the Crown, Paris, Actes Sud, coll. "African Letters", 2013 ( ISBN 978-2-330-01271-7 )
· There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (2012)
Distinctions
· Margaret Wrong Memorial Prize (1959)
· Nigerian National Trophy for literature (1960)
· Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1972)
· Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1979)
· Nigerian National Merit Award (1979)
· Peace Prize for German Booksellers (13 Oct 2002): "The jury wanted to honor one of Africa's most widely read authors, who became a classic during his lifetime. "
· In 2004, Achebe refused, in protest against the current policy of his native country, the title of Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR), the second most important honorary title in Nigeria; he rejects this distinction a second time in 2011.
· In 2007, he received the Man Booker International Prize for all of his work.
Comments