A Library Is Set Ablaze – Requiem To Achebe (1930 – 2013)

The Rainbow Book Club members and friends were gathered at Le Meridien, Ogeyi Place, Port Harcourt, on 20^th March 2013 to mark World Poetry Day by turning the light on a genre of literature that does not always get the attention it deserves.  Unknown to us, in faraway Boston Massachusetts, the light was dimming for our honourary member, the revered author, Professor Chinua Achebe.  Achebe passed away on the 21^st of March 2013.

Chinua Achebe signified different things to different people. To the Rainbow Book Club he was an invaluable ‘member’; his keynote address at our 2011 Garden City Literary Festival was his last public address in Nigeria. He was also the first author to have more than one book chosen as the Rainbow Book Club Book-of-the-Month within a space of four months. 

If I may get a bit personal, I would describe Chinua Achebe as my favourite storyteller. He has also encouraged my humble foray into poetry writing. In the late 90s, I sent in a series of poems I had written, to be considered for publication in Okike – An African Journal of New Writing which Prof Achebe had founded to encourage aspiring writers.  I felt validated when my poem, La Lumiere, was accepted and published in the March 1997 edition.

Like countless others, I was first introduced to Achebe as a teenager. I read his Things Fall Apart while I was at the Federal Government Girls College Abuloma, Port Harcourt, in the 80s. This powerful novel remains one of the few books I read over and over again. This book drew me to the other works of this great wordsmith whom God endowed with the rare gift of communicating serious issues in a simple but profound way.

I never imagined I would have the privilege of meeting Prof Achebe in person, but life has a way of springing surprises on us every now and then. The opportunity presented itself in 1999 when my husband and I had just completed our postgraduate studies at the University of Lancaster and were working in London. One day, I got wind of the fact that Achebe was going to be a guest at the London Festival of Literature. I also learnt that on the same evening Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott would be featured. Not even the caustic winter winds of that cold January evening could keep me away from the venue – a hall somewhere in East London.  I left my office in South Kensington early that day so I could get a good seat at the programme. Soyinka delivered a lecture, Walcott recited his poetry and Achebe was interviewed by Alastair Niven – then Director of Literature at the British Council, London. It was on that fateful day I would meet my favourite storyteller in person. The copy of Things Fall Apart which Achebe autographed for me on that occasion remains a ‘collector’s’ item in my library. I even got to take a photograph with him!

The Rainbow Book Club’s story would be incomplete without mentioning Professor Achebe, for several reasons. For instance, when, in 2005 we were set to launch our ‘Get Nigeria Reading again!’ campaign, I sent word to Prof. Achebe through his childhood friend and Rainbow Book Club (RBC) patron, the late Senator Francis Ellah, inviting him as Guest of Honour.  Although I got encouraging feedback from the Prof., he was unable to come to Port Harcourt for our programme, mainly because of ill health. He would later pen these priceless words about our work: ‘The Rainbow Book Club stands to contribute immensely to Nigeria’s intellectual development and burgeoning democracy’.

In 2008, when the world celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, reputed to be Africa’s most popular novel, we tried once again to get Professor Achebe to be guest author at our ‘Get Nigeria Reading again!’ campaign, but that was not to be. We however got the Prof’s blessing to feature him as our writer in focus, even if he would not be physically present. That year was special to our work as we kicked off our practice of getting role models to read to children by having the highly esteemed former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, read to over 100 children at the UN House in Abuja, from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

We are proud that Achebe was the first author in Nigerian Literature; A Coat of Many Colours, our anthology of 50 Nigerian authors, published to mark Nigeria’s 50^th independence anniversary, in 2010.

The following year, as we prepared for the Garden City Literary Festival 2011 with the theme Literature and Politics, we thought Achebe was the ideal person to deliver the keynote address. Once again, we went knocking at his door. One would think that by this time he would be fed up with our insistent calling on him and even be irritated at our persistence, but not Prof. Achebe. Unable to make it to Port Harcourt, he sent his son, Dr. Chidi Achebe, all the way from the US, to deliver his keynote address. He even went as far as to record a personal video greeting to the festival, which was played just before Dr. Achebe delivered the address. That year, our drama in focus was a stage adaptation of his book A Man of the People.  

When Prof. Achebe released his latest and what has turned out to be his last work, the Rainbow Book Club followed with keen interest the debate it stirred up. There Was a Country was our natural choice for book- of- the- month for January 2013. Our January reading was one of the liveliest we have ever had.  There Was a Country remains a bestseller in Nigeria. How do we know when a book is a bestseller in Nigeria? Simple – when pirated copies are being sold by hawkers in the streets!

With Achebe’s demise a library has certainly been set ablaze, but we must not let it burn to ashes. What we must do is aspire to catch the fire that burned in Achebe’s heart and caused him to relentlessly and continually speak out on issues that affect our country and our common humanity.

On our path for instance, the Rainbow Book Club continues to call for the establishment of library centres in at least every Local Government Area in Nigeria, to help restore the Nigeria that produced the likes of Chinua Achebe.  We can all light our candles from the embers of the flames coming from the burning library of this great man’s demise and shine from our various communities by standing up for the things Achebe fought for – dignity for the black man, justice, good governance, exemplary leadership, etc.

We can still benefit from the library that Achebe represents through the many legacies that he has left behind: the Heinemann African Writer’s series of which he was pioneer editor, the Association of Nigerian Authors which he founded, Okike, the journal he established, the Achebe Colloquium for Africa, set up to strengthen peace and democracy in Africa and above all, the library of books he has bequeathed to the world.

Night has come for our beloved storyteller, teacher, intellectual and fighter. A library has been set ablaze. Against the dark skies, let the light of this library glow till it is Morning Yet on Creation Day.