Prof. Chinua Achebe is dead

News have just filtered from Sahara Reporters  that the famed author of controversial book ''There Was A Country'' has passed on.The renowned author of ''Things Fall Apart'' is gone.He lived to be 82years old born on November 16, 1930, and had been in hospital in recent days.
He touched and influenced a lot of lives especially in the University of Nigeria Nsukka,notable among them is Chimamanda Adichie. May He Rest in Peace.
He will be greatly missed.A truly great man and writer.Indeed the death of a writer marks the beginning of his life.

Some of his famous quotes:

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
― Chinua Achebe

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do -- it can make us identify with situations and people far away. If it does that, it's a miracle.

CHINUA ACHEBE, The Altantic Online, Aug. 2, 2000

A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.

CHINUA ACHEBE, No Longer at Ease

As a rule I don't like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.

CHINUA ACHEBE, A Man of the People

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.

CHINUA ACHEBE, Things Fall Apart

Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.

CHINUA ACHEBE, Anthills of the Savannah

A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.

CHINUA ACHEBE, Things Fall Apart

[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?

CHINUA ACHEBE, A Man of the People