Nigerian writer (1930-2013)
The life of the imagination is a vital element of our total nature. If we starve it or pollute it the quality of our life is depressed or soiled.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
A chief does not hurry.
CHINUA ACHEBE
The Drum
I keep telling Chris that life is simpler that way. Much simpler. Stop looking back over your shoulder, I tell him. There ain't no deliverer running just a little behind schedule. March to the stake like a man and take the bullet in your chest. Much simpler.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Anthills of the Savannah
To the question of writing at all we have sometimes been counselled to forget it, or rather the writing of books. What is required, we are told, is plays and films. Books are out of date! The book is dead, long live television! One question which is not even raised let alone considered is: Who will write the drama and film scripts when the generation that can read and write has been used up?
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
What kind of power was it if it would never be used?
CHINUA ACHEBE
Arrow of God
An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.
CHINUA ACHEBE
The Massachusetts Review, Summer, 1987
I don't think that elegant Miss Nigeria will have the imagination or the conscience to explore the possibilities of that encounter. She will dodge the rude beggar and speed away in her expensive car to a sterile assignation with her bloated Mr. Hoverhead Capital.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
How many times now have I managed to read the Big Shot's mind better than all the courtiers? Who knows, I may soon be suspected of witchcraft or of having a secret hot-line to the palace! For it does not stand to reason that from my hermit's hut in the forest I should divine the thoughts of the Emperor better than the mesmerized toadies in daily attendance.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Anthills of the Savannah
Where I come from in the Eastern Region, life is still -- well, things are changing very fast but if one is interested, one can still see signs of what life used to look like.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Conversations with Chinua Achebe
We know the breath-taking
joy of his sisters when the word
spread: He is risen! But a
man who has lived a full life
will have others to
reckon with beside his
sisters. Certainly that keen-eyed
subordinate who has moved up
to his table at the office, for
him resurrection is an awful
embarrassment.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Attento, Soul Brother!
The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor's domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Conjunctions, Fall 1991