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| Photo Credit |
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| A Young Achebe Photo Credit |
Today let’s look at Chinua Achebe. His name is synonymous
with literary prowess, intelligence and many other good things, but do you know
how old he was when he published his first book, “Things Fall Apart”? Our dear
Prof. Achebe published this literary classic in 1958, and he was born in 1930. It’s
time to do the maths. Roughly, depending on the month of publication, Prof.
Achebe would have been 27 or 28 years old. Achebe went on to publish “No Longer at Ease” in 1960, “Arrow of God” in 1964, “A Man of the People” 1966 and “Anthills of the Savannah” in
1987.
This is not in any way implying that if you have not found
your niche by the age of 27, you are still on track according to Achebe’s time
line. Rather the message is this- what
are you doing to prepare and equip yourself for the task ahead? Achebe was
getting an education at the University of Ibadan (whoop whoop!) he was reading
Joseph Conrad’s novels and other novels that depicted Africa wrongly, and in
1958 he decided to do something about the perception of Africa by publishing his own side of the
story (by the way, books don’t get written in a second).
Achebe searched for and found himself in his twenties. If
all you are doing right now is chilling, calling out imaginary haters on Instagram
and Facebook, and blaming the government for your woes, I’m sorry to say you
may not be on the right track.
I do not need you to feel the pressure to write a book,
create the next catch phrase in Economics or invent a car that runs on water,
(all these are attainable though) rather I want you to read widely, have
intelligent debates, blog about fashion or politics, explore ideas, draw,
paint, travel and ask questions, and in the midst of that, maybe, and most
probably, you will find what in this world you are called to change.
On my 20s honour, I will be back with more life relevant
gist!
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