The Google Doodle for today is dedicated to the GREAT CHINUA ACHEBE. Google created a google doodle marking what would have been Chinua Achebe’s 87th birthday. 

Chinualumogu Albert Achebe was born on the 16th day of November 1930. He was a novelist, poet, professor, and critic. Things Fall Apart, his first novel is the most widely read book in modern African Literature.

He died on the 21st Day of March 2013, he was 82. He died after a brief illness.
A lot of people are very familiar with Achebe’s novels but only few have read and studied his essays.

Pa Ikhide a literary critic and a true lover of Achebe’s works often mentions the importance of focusing on CHINUA ACHEBE’S ESSAYS. 

In a recent Facebook Post he wrote;

“Not every time, Things Fall Apart. Find Chinua Achebe’s essay collections, buy and read them. They contain some of his most profound thoughts on literature and our humanity.”

In another Facebook Post, he wrote;

After Anthills of the Savannah, Professor Chinua Achebe abandoned the use of fiction to deliver his message. I think now that it was a courageous and honest move. Outside of Things Fall Apart, his essays are the works that speak to me the most and in profound ways. 

I think every scholar should read Today, the Balance of Stories in Home and Exile. That essay richly influenced my reading of modern thought and was the inspiration for my essays on the issue of how the West sees Black Africa and our stories. 

More importantly, Achebe’s essays taught me that it is not necessary to come up with contrived fiction just to express an opinion. If you have something to say, say it and sit down, my friend. 

Achebe was one very courageous writer. He told his truths quietly, persistently and with uncommon dignity.”

Below are titles of Chinua Achebe’s Essays, criticisms, non-fictions and political commentaries.

The Novelist as Teacher (1965) – also in Hopes and Impediments

An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (1975) – also in Hopes and Impediments

Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975)

The Trouble With Nigeria (1984)

Hopes and Impediments (1988)

Home and Exile (2000)

The Education of a British-Protected Child (6 October 2009)

There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra (11 October 2012)

I particularly enjoy reading Pa Ikhide’s blogposts. He shines light on Chinua Achebe’s work in so many beautiful ways. Like the post on his website titled MY FATHER’S CUPBOARD;

“I will always remember Achebe because his books were one reason I bonded with my dad, a complex but loving man. I inherited my dad’s passions, a lot of them demons, his love for beautiful people, good music, words, a good bottle, and books. Achebe saved my dad and me with the power of words. He was a giant, powerful eagle perched at the head of a pack of thinkers and doers who insisted on telling us our stories, at a time when that was what you had to do to entertain children and their parents. I lost a father in Achebe, this man who made my father play with me…”

I recommend his Website

Chinua Achebe may be dead, but his books are forever with us! We should read them, study them and pass them to the younger generations.