The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.
Chinua AchebeIt is not quite true to say that I am not an advocate of writing in African languages. What I think is, one has to think about what is practicable.
Chinua AchebePerhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwoโs fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.
Chinua AchebeThe Novelist As Teacherโ: โI would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past โ with all its imperfections โ was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on Godโs behalf delivered them.
Chinua Achebe