THE NOVELIST AS A TEACHER- Chinua Achebe

 

THE NOVELIST AS A TEACHER

            Chinua Achebe is the most influential novelist of Nigeria and one of the most authentic voices of the present African consciousness. “The Novelist as a Teacher” is a talk delivered at the first common Wealth Writers Conference at Leeds in 1964. It was considered as the literary manifesto of Achebe. The essay comprises two parts. In the first part, Achebe talks about the existence of a work of art in relation to its interaction with the readers. In the second part, he talks about the function of a writer. An African writer writing in English as Chinua Achebe does is new in Africa. He tries to find and describes in detail the complex relationship between the African writers and their readers.

            Though most of the African writers had their education in Europe they should not take it for granted that the relationship between the African writers and their audience is same as European writers and their audience. The European writer plays only a peripheral role. To impress his readers, he is growing a beard and is wearing a peculiar kind of dress and is behaving in a strange, unpredictable way. He is in revolt against the society. It makes the society not to entrust him with a responsible task. Achebe is not interested in what writers expect of society. It is generally contained in their books. He concerns only on what society expects of its writers which is not well documented.

            Achebe assumes that the African writer and his reader live in the same place that is Africa. There is an allegation that African readers are only students and they read only textbooks and so African writers have to write for European and American readers. To add strength to his belief he gives some statistical data. His novel, Things Fall Apart was sold 800 copies in Britain, 20,000 copies in Nigeria and about 2,500 copies in all other places. The same was happened to his novel No longer at Ease.

            Many of his readers take him as a kind of teacher. Achebe received a letter recently from Nigeria. It was written by I. Buba Yero Mafindi. Buba does not use to write to authors however the works of the author is interesting he wants to tell how much he enjoyed Things Fall Apart and No longer at Ease, the two novels of Achebe. He eagerly looks forward to read the other novel ‘Arrow of God’ of the author. He says that the novels of Achebe advice young people. He conveys his wishes to produce as many books.

            There is another letter from Ghana. He wrote a pathetic letter to Achebe. He asks the author why he had neglected to add questions and answers at the end of the novel, Things Fall Apart and that could make him to secure high marks in the school certificate examination. In Ghana Achebe met a young lady teacher. She spoke earnestly. She talks about his novel No longer at Ease. She asked the author to picture young men with enough guts to go against the custom to marry the girl with whom he fell in love. The author does not agree with the view of the lady teacher. He is uneasy at the accusation of the lady teacher. He feels that he has not used an opportunity to educate readers on such whimsical and frivolous matters as love marriage. Achebe chooses the causes for his fight. A Nigerian newspaper editor waging a war against the ‘soul-less efficiency’ of an industrial and technological civilization. He does not want to join with him. He holds the view that efficiency is essential for developing Africa.

            Achebe was thinking on the peculiar needs of different societies. He heard an English pop song not so long ago. The pop singer said that he was not going to wash for a week. Achebe was wondered why he should take such a vow where there were so many worthwhile resolutions to make. It was said that cleanliness was next to godliness.  Achebe saw him as a kind of divine administrator of vengeance.

            Achebe gives an example of the result of the disaster brought upon the African values and customs of alien races. In Achebe’s village, in his father’s generation, the local girls’ school performed Nigerian dances of the coming of the gospel. When Christianity spread the tradition was given up. They always put on something Christian. He also remembers that in those days the poor Nigerian people used earthen pots to carry water from the stream. They began to use tins and other metal-ware to carry water.

            Westernization has led Africans to denigrate their own culture. So it is the duty of Achebe to help his society to regain its belief and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-denigration. As Jean-Paul Sastre, the founder of the philosophical movement ‘existentialism’ said, ‘anti-racist racism is necessary to show that African is not only as good as the white but he is better. It is the duty of African writers to re-educate and regenerate Africans to make them aware of the greatness of their culture.