الروائى النيجيرى شينوا اشيبى 1930-2013 -لايوجد عزاء.

Quote: On March 22nd this year 2013, the World lost one of its greatest story-tellers and Africa one of her most strident voices for liberation, freedom and equality. Chinua Achebe known in childhood years as Albert Chinualumogu Achebe of Nigeria is no more. We are here at the invitation of the African Leadership Institute USA and Wright State University, to celebrate his life and pay tribute to the enormity of Chinua Achebe's accomplishments. I met Chinua Achebe for the first time fifty years ago in my secondary school library. Even though we studied literature in school; an African writing a book to be considered worthy of study by secondary school students was not considered a good idea. It was with guilt that I read his books, which were not yet in the syllabus. It was much later, when I entered the University as student of English, that I had the good fortune to be introduced to Achebe 's works; Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, The Arrow of God and Man of the People. At that time I didn't quite realize that I would be held in Achebe 's eagle- on-iroko grip, for much of the rest of my life. He taught literature, and was a card-carrying member of the Peoples Redemption Party. During the Nigerian Civil war, he was Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the defunct Biafra. He was a great writer who enriched literature and the human capacity to fight for freedom and truth. My journey through life as a student and teacher of literature, as writer, politician and diplomat may have been unconscious attempts to follow in his prodigious footsteps on this less-travelled pathway. Prof. Achebe has come to the end of this hard road to travel in glory.