Failure™ Magazine

Chinua Achebe

The Failure Interview.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, History

So it’s a very experienced continent. This experience can also be seen in its arts, music and stories, and the stories it makes are extraordinarily profound. That’s one of the pitfalls, to think of Africa as if it were New York, instead of a place where you can put the whole of Europe, of the USA, China, India, Argentina and still have room for New Zealand [laughs]. So when Joyce Cary, the author of “Mister Johnson” says something like “…in Africa people don’t…” this is absurd.

The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity—that it’s this or maybe that—you have just one large statement; It is this. It is particularly dangerous for a creative writer. You are not supposed to use stereotype—you are supposed to see things, individual special qualities or failings.

What do you think it will be like to be an African in the 21st century?
I think it’s going to be exciting. I also think it’s going to be tough. There is so much unfinished business from the 20th century—so much wasted. Once we get over the worst prospects of these unfinished businesses, most African countries are going to begin almost from scratch to organize their polity to this kind of working concern. You had the period of the independence and the feeling that we had arrived—that things were now going to work. We even had people saying that the 20th century was the century of Africa. This was in the ’60s when things looked so hopeful. That was quashed completely by the cold war. So what we are doing now is going back to capture that period of independence and make it work. It’s not going to be easy but it’s going to be exciting.

What do you think of when you think of Nigeria? What do you miss about your homeland?
The fact that it’s home—that home-ness [laughs]. It’s really very romantic. We know it’s not working but that’s no reason not to love it. I believe that the engine of development is diversity. People work out a kind of relationship with their habitat. Therefore, to suggest that those who live in the desert should move and go live somewhere else is foolish. The world requires all these different places.

Some people have proposed that the geography of Africa—the way its borders are drawn—contributes to its instability. How do you feel about that?
I’m not likely to accept that. The geography has a role to play in the nature of the continent but I don’t accept that it’s a negative role, that it’s something that will deter the continent from developing. We simply have a lot of old baggage to discard.

Are you working on another book?
Always [laughs]. But the best thing is not to talk too much about anything before it’s real. Otherwise it walks away [laughs].

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