Nigeria: Chinua Achebe 1930-2013

By Kole Omotosho, Avuncular is the easiest word that comes to mind for me in describing China Achebe who passed on last night and joined the ancestors. Ours was not an easy relationship but it was based on great respect from my side and a side ways flance of possibility as far as he thought of me at all. He was a pioneer in more than one area of thought and writing. He was a builder of institutions and founder of organisations. While a number of Africans north and south of the Sahara had published fiction in English before Achebe published Things Fall Apart in 1957,

took Achebe's novel to kick-start what today is known around the world as african literature.  The book became the first title in what Heinemann started as the African Writers Series. Chinua Achebe became its founding editor. it My first two novels were published in the series and the second novel did not sit well with him. It is a mockery of the motives of those who fought the civil war. Finally he gave his imprimatur conceding that it was good write! continued