Achebe, A Man Ahead Of His Generation, By Prof Bart Nnaji

Chinualumogu Achebe, Professor of English, father of modern African literature

Professor Chinua Achebe had left the University of Massachusetts about a decade before I joined the same University in 1983 as Professor and Director of the Automation and Robotics laboratory. At the time, Achebe’s reputation was still looming large at UMass. On realizing that Achebe and I came from the same country and the same state in Nigeria (old Anambra State), students and professors as well as non-academic staff ceaselessly asked me questions about Achebe—about his health, his family, his books and, of course, about the legendary village of Umuofia in his epic novel, Things Fall Apart. Poor fellows! My only contact with Achebe then was only through his books which I thoroughly enjoyed reading while in high school.