Chinua Achebe as a Revolutionary Leader

2366 Words10 Pages
Chinua Achebe: A Revolutionary leader Born and raised in Nigeria, Chinua Achebe was one of the most unique and prominent Africans of the 20th and the 21st century. For the time he lived, he has made a number of accomplishments. His achievements in various fields and personality as well, gained him worldwide popularity. He was a novelist, a poet, a professor, and a critic. Best known for his work in a novel called “Things fall apart” that sold over 12 million copies worldwide and translated into over 50 different languages, the most widely read book in modern Africa, Chinua Achebe became quite renowned in Africa and also the rest of the world (Chinua Achebe 2008). Early Life: Chinua Achebe, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in full, was born on the 16th of November 1930 in the eastern part of Nigeria, particularly, an Igbo town called Ogidi. Being raised by his Igbo parents, Achebe attended and excelled school and eventually won an undergraduate study scholarship. In 1936, he enrolled in a Christian school called the St. Philips central school. He spent a week taking the religious classes before a captain of the school noticed his intelligence and had him moved to a higher class. In his early school ages, a teacher descried him as the student with the best reading and writing skills. Chinua attended the weekly Sunday school as well, and the monthly special evangelical services (Agetu 1977). At one session of such services, a controversy erupted which would later be portrayed in one of Achebe’s novels; where an apostle from the new church challenged the catechist about the tenets of Christianity. At twelve, Chinua moved away from his family to a nearby village to continue studying at a school where his brother John taught. In the village, he gained an appreciation of a traditional form of art which involved the invocation of Gods’ protection through a symbolic
Open Document