But I know it indicates a lot of love and respect, so it also makes me feel rather humble.' This sort of rock-star treatment has become an increasingly regular occurrence and one that he says he 'observes with some amazement and the hope that it will all end well. Despite his robust language, Achebe was mobbed after the event by well-wishers who formed an alarming crush round his wheelchair – he was paralysed in a car crash 20 years ago – as they attempted to take photographs and ask him questions. Extra security was discreetly deployed but in the end was not needed. The assumption was that he was warning the white members of the audience, but in reality his lecture was far more uncomfortable listening for the sizeable Nigerian contingent, including a slew of government and embassy dignitaries, as he spoke of 'indolent kleptocrats' in the government, and 'a cesspool of corruption'.īefore the lecture there had been some rumblings within the university that if Achebe was too outspoken, in particular about the Biafran war and the ongoing secessionist dispute in that part of Nigeria which remains a painful subject 40 years after the war ended, then there might be protests against him. He opened by expressing the hope that his words would not be too offensive. Last month, on a rare visit to the UK, he gave a lecture at Cambridge University – an institution that turned him down for post-graduate study over 50 years ago – entitled 'Nigeria's Painful Transitions'. But despite his status, he remains a contentious figure. The chair of judges, Elaine Showalter, said that in 'redrawing the contours of African history' he had at the same time 'redrawn the contours of the novel Joyce recreated for the 20th century, and illuminated the path for other writers seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies.' Nelson Mandela said Achebe had 'brought Africa to the rest of the world' and described him as 'the writer in whose company the prison walls came down'.Īchebe was 80 last month and is a model of the grand old man of African writing. In 2007 Achebe was awarded the inaugural Man Booker International prize. No Longer at Ease (1960) features Okonkwo's grandson in the 1950s working for the British colonial civil service Arrow of God (1964) went back to the early years of the century to interrogate relations between traditional and colonial faiths and power structures. Things Fall Apart told the tragic story of Okonkwo in late 19th-century Nigeria as Christian missionaries began their work in the region. His most recent essay collection, The Education of a British-Protected Child (Penguin), is published in paperback this week. He is a novelist, poet, children's writer, critic, editor and essayist. While this allegation was entirely untrue in its specifics, in a wider sense his work has always been closely informed by, and intertwined with, Nigerian politics as well as with its culture, history and literature. The eerie prescience of Achebe's novel led to him being accused of having prior knowledge of the coup by the authorities. That night is something we have never really got over.' 'And any confidence we had that things could be put right were smashed. That night we had a coup.' The prime minister was murdered, along with key regional politicians and members of their families, as elements from the military took control. 'I'd ended the book with a coup,' Achebe explains, 'which was ridiculous because Nigeria was much too big a country to have a coup, but it was right for the novel. Despite being set in an unnamed African state, it was clearly a satire on post-independence Nigeria detailing the greed and vanity of the slide into corruption and the cynical lip service paid to traditional values by aspirant politicians on the make.

'Everything in the book is happening,' he said, 'except the coup.'' The book was Achebe's fourth novel, A Man of the People, which was due to be published in London a few days later.

'And then he burst through the door holding a book and shouting that I was a prophet. The meeting that night was delayed because one of the members was late. We thought it would keep us writers safe.' It wasn't yet a complete failure, and we still thought we could get things right. There was theft, corruption and even some violence. But six years after the celebrations and optimism that marked Nigerian independence, he says there were already 'far too many indications that we might not be going to have a good time. His 1958 debut novel, Things Fall Apart, had made him a literary celebrity abroad and an influential public intellectual at home.

In January 1966 Chinua Achebe attended a meeting of the newly founded Society of Nigerian Authors.

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