Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.
Chinua AchebeArt is created to make us, to make our passage through the world better, fruitful - and I would say that every story in the end, if it is good, tells us something. This is actually what I meant when I said a novelist is a teacher. Which is why I am constantly dealing with "didactic". Now a teacher in the sense I use it is not somebody who has the profession of standing in front of children, with a piece of chalk in his hand scribbling on the blackboard. That is not the teacher I have in mind. The teacher I have in mind is something less tangible.
Chinua AchebeIf I say look unless you change your leaders I will not give you any aid, you are likely to have people who say: "To the hell with you, we will struggle on the way but we will do it". Therefore what I am saying is - and I do not whether it is coming through clearly - there has to be a lot of care exercised by the people who are in the position to give or withhold assistance: if they start throwing their weight around, using extreme language, seeming to order other nations to do their bidding, then there will not be a good result, it will not be done.
Chinua Achebe