
Chinua Achebe
Early life
Edit
Achebe was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in the
[8]Igbo village of Ogidi on 16 November 1930. Isaiah
Okafo Achebe and Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam
Achebe stood at a crossroads of traditional culture
and Christian influence; this made a significant impact
on the children, especially Chinualumogu. After the
youngest daughter was born, the family moved to
Isaiah Achebe"s ancestral town of
Ogidi, in what is
[2]now the state of Anambra.
Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition and
an integral part of the community. Achebe"s mother
and sister Zinobia Uzoma told him many stories as a
child, which he repeatedly requested. His education
was furthered by the collages his father hung on the
walls of their home, as well as almanacs and
numerous books – including a prose adaptation of A
Midsummer Night"s Dream (c. 1590) and an Igbo
[9][10]version of The Pilgrim"s Progress (1678). Chinua
also eagerly anticipated traditional village events, like
the frequent
masquerade ceremonies, which he
[11]recreated later in his novels and stories.
Education
Edit
In 1936, Achebe entered St Philips" Central School.
Despite his protests, he spent a week in the religious
class for young children, but was quickly moved to a
higher class when the school"s
chaplain took note of
[12]his intelligence. One teacher described him as the
student with the best handwriting in class, and the
[13]best reading skills. He also attended Sunday
school every week and the special evangelical
services held monthly, often carrying his father"s bag.
A controversy erupted at one such session, when
apostates from the new church challenged the
catechist about the tenets of Christianity. Achebe
later included a scene from this incident in
Things Fall
[14][15]Apart.
At the age of 12, Achebe moved away from his
family to the village of
Nekede, four kilometres from
Owerri. He enrolled as a student at the Central
[16]School, where his older brother John taught. In
Nekede, Achebe gained an appreciation for Mbari, a
traditional art form that seeks to invoke the gods"
protection through symbolic sacrifices in the form of
[17]sculpture and collage. (He would later suggest the
name for the Mbari Writers and Artists Club that was
[18]founded in Ibadan by Ulli Beier and others in 1961.)
[19]When the time came to change to secondary
school, in 1944, Achebe sat entrance examinations for
and was accepted at both the prestigious Dennis
Memorial Grammar School in
Onitsha and the even
[20]more prestigious Government College in Umuahia.
Modeled on the British public school, and funded by
the colonial administration, Government College was
established in 1929 to educate Nigeria"s future elite.
[20]It had rigorous academic standards and was
vigorously elitist, accepting boys purely on the basis
[20]of ability. The language of the school was English,
not only to develop proficiency but also to provide a
common tongue for pupils from different Nigerian
[21]language groups. Achebe described this later as
being ordered to "put away their different mother
tongues and communicate in the language of their
[22]colonisers". The rule was strictly enforced and
Achebe recalls that his first punishment was for
[21]asking another boy to pass the soap in Igbo.
Once there, Achebe was double-promoted in his first
year, completing the first two years" studies in one,
and spending only four years in secondary school,
[23]instead of the standard five. Achebe was unsuited
to the school"s sports regimen and belonged instead
to a group of six exceedingly studious pupils. So
intense were their study habits that the headmaster
banned the reading of textbooks from five to six
o"clock in the afternoon (though other activities and
[24]other books were allowed).
Achebe started to explore the school"s "wonderful
[25]library". There he discovered Booker T.
Washington"s Up From Slavery (1901), the
autobiography of an American former slave; Achebe
"found it sad, but it showed him another dimension of
[24]reality". He also read classic novels, such as
Gulliver"s Travels (1726), David Copperfield (1850), and
Treasure Island (1883), together with tales of colonial
derring-do such as H. Rider Haggard"s Allan
Quatermain (1887) and John Buchan"s Prester John
(1910). Achebe later recalled that, as a reader, he
"took sides with the white characters against the
[25]savages" and even developed a dislike for
Africans. "The white man was good and reasonable
and intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed
against him were sinister and stupid or, at the most,
[25]cunning. I hated their guts."
University
Edit
Street
in
Ibadan,
2007
In 1948, in preparation for independence, Nigeria"s
[26]first university opened. Known as University
College (now the University of Ibadan), it was an
associate college of the University of London. Achebe
obtained such high marks in the entrance
examination that he was admitted as a Major Scholar
in the university"s first intake and given a
bursary to
[26]study medicine. It was during his studies at
Ibadan that Achebe began to become critical of
European literature about Africa. After reading
Joyce
Cary"s 1939 work Mister Johnson about a cheerful
Nigerian man who (among other things) works for an
abusive British storeowner, he was so disturbed by
the book"s portrayal of its Nigerian characters as
either savages or buffoons that he decided to
[27]become a writer. Achebe recognised his dislike for
the African protagonist as a sign of the author"s
cultural ignorance. One of his classmates announced
to the professor that the only enjoyable moment in
[28]the book is when Johnson is shot.
He abandoned the study of medicine and changed to
[29]English, history, and theology. Because he
switched his field, however, he lost his scholarship
and had to pay tuition fees. He received a
government
bursary, and his family also donated
money – his older brother Augustine gave up money
for a trip home from his job as a civil servant so
[30]Chinua could continue his studies. From its
inception, the university had a strong Arts faculty; it
includes many famous writers amongst its alumni.
These include
Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, poet and
playwright John Pepper Clark, and poet Christopher
[31]Okigbo. Elechi Amadi is also another famous
writer who studied at the university in the 1950s,
although he was in the faculty of sciences.
In 1950 Achebe wrote a piece for the University
Herald entitled "Polar Undergraduate", his debut as an
author. It used irony and humour to celebrate the
[32]intellectual vigour of his classmates. He followed
this with other essays and letters about philosophy
and freedom in academia, some of which were
[33]published in another campus magazine, The Bug.
He served as the Herald"s editor during the 1951–52
[34]school year.
While at the university, Achebe wrote his first short
story, "In a Village Church", which combines details of
life in rural Nigeria with Christian institutions and
icons, a style which appears in many of his later
[35]works. Other short stories he wrote during his
time at Ibadan (including "The Old Order in Conflict
with the New" and "Dead Men"s Path") examine
conflicts between tradition and
modernity, with an
eye toward dialogue and understanding on both
[36]sides. When a professor named Geoffrey
Parrinder arrived at the university to teach
comparative religion, Achebe began to explore the
fields of Christian history and African traditional
[37]religions.
After the final examinations at Ibadan in 1953,
Achebe was awarded a second-class degree. Rattled
by not receiving the highest level, he was uncertain
how to proceed after graduation. He returned to his
hometown of Ogidi to sort through his options.
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