Tag: Chinua Achebe
-
Keep knowing that Chinualumogu!
I have always loved his name. The idea that Chinualumogu is the perfect name for the second most ambitious year in my life. 2022 was bold but 2023 takes the cake for the most disruptive and innovative year ever. It’s of course not as stellar as 2022, Chinualumogu made complete sense if you know the…
Written by
·
-
Keep your struggles.
I am always mesmerized by an interview Chinua Achebe gave on NPR back in 1988. In it he told a story about a tortoise and a leopard. The leopard meets the tortoise on a lonely stretch of road. He had been trying to catch the tortoise for a long time. Tortoise, being a trickster, always…
Written by
·
-
Keep struggle!
In a 1987 interview with Chris Searle, Chinua Achebe shared why it took him nearly 15 years before he wrote his next novel ‘Anthills of the Savannah.’ It’s is one of my favorite of all his books for his critical stance on the significance of the story. The story, according to Achebe, is ‘our escort…
Written by
·
-
Keep the public in public health!
In a 1989 conversation with Charles Rowell, Chinua Achebe shared a story about the goddess of creativity. He described this as the earth goddess, called Ala or Ani by the Igbo people. Not only is she responsible for creativity, he mentioned that she is also responsible for morality. For her, art cannot then be in…
Written by
·
-
Keep stories, like sustainability, in mind!
One of my favorite aspects of the novel Anthills of the Savannah’s by Chinua Achebe is the focus on the power of the story and the storyteller. In it Achebe reminds us of ‘stories being our escorts, and our guides’ through life. Some people, the novel notes, have been given the gift of leadership, summoning…
Written by
·
-
Keep focusing on the trouble with Nigeria!
I keep returning to the book The Trouble with Nigeria by Chinua Achebe. It was written in 1983 and described then as ‘a must read for all Nigerians who care about their country, who feel they can no longer stand idly by and wring their hands in anguish while Nigeria is destroyed by bad leadership,…
Written by
·
Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 