achebe-tribute

FESTIVAL OF A GREAT MASK

(Tribute to Professor Chinua Achebe)

Imagine you are an African girl in a rural community enjoying great novels, but they remain distant partly because your fellow girls in the fiction have hair that look like what you see on fresh corn, play in the snow and eat potatoes. I could only imagine these through my Papa’s explanation that potatoes looked like ji-unu (sweet potatoes) in our garden, snow looked like salt spread all over the land, and hairs could be any form that God made them. I loved Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Beyond Pardon and of course our school texts such as Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre, but Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, did it for me. I could see myself and recognize the characters that looked like some people in my village. Braided hairs, body decorations, yams, ogbanje, and tortoise stories, seasonal festivals and masquerades in TFA were part of my life. “This is it!” I said long ago before I watched the movie, “this is it,” based on Michael Jackson.

Ewo-o! Alu me-re! (Abomination happened!) Chinua Achebe, the writer that ‘importanced’ us in the map of world fiction is gone? The one that wrote without fear, of things that many whispered in secret! Multitalented weaver of various genres! A mighty tree has fallen from the literary world - Igbo, Nigerian, African, Black and the Global. We spent most of that fateful day of his passing on the phone, mourning as we all tried to cry on the shoulders of one another. That was one of the few times that people phoned me from Nigeria without telling me that their "credit was going” - even students. Achebe has always been close to us, whether you knew him personally or not – he wrote for us. His issues were our issues and his language was ours. At that time, he could give African women some fictional recognition. Thank you for that poem about the refugee mother – it connects me to memories buried in the pit of my stomach, memories that I like to forget but they just won’t go away. The assurance in your poems assuages my Biafran ghosts.

When you meet the man, he is humility personified – affable, unassuming, ready to share. But do not provoke him – o! The mouth of his pen is powerful o! And very sweet too! Here and over there …

A great tree has fallen, but its great forest still flowers, so we celebrate the rich legacy. Prodigious novelist, poet and essayist of world literature and letters with a focus on African, Nigerian and Igbo worlds, I salute you! I remember you most for your courage and fearlessness in proclaiming your truth. I remember you as a humble and good person. An extraordinary human being. Adieu, Great Teacher. Go in peace. I’m sure that over there, you are enjoying a festival in your honor as our revered forbears welcome you and place you on a high pedestal because you have not only done a very good job, you have exceeded. Your children are all well-educated. Your distinguished wife, Dr. Christy A, teacher and author, put her work on hold because you needed extra loving care at the most crucial period. Your works smile in different languages from corners of the earth. What more? The great mask is rising higher! Oke osisi, ihu gi di oke mma, ma na azu gi ga ama kalia. Ise (Great Tree, your face – present – was great, but your back – posthumous – will be greater. So be it).

Professor Chinyere G. Okafor
Department of Women’s Studies & Religion
Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas.

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Page title: Nigeria - Festival of a Great Mask (Chinua Achebe)
Last update: May 21, 2013
Web page by C. G. Okafor