Musings on AK Ramanujan's 'Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?'

 

THE NOVELIST AS TEACHER

            Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, thinker, poet and a very important figure in African literature, is the author of great novels like Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. This is a speech that was given by Achebe at Leeds University in 1965. Achebe begins his famous essay The Novelist as Teacher by saying that writing novels in Nigeria, in Africa is a new phenomenon. Unlike Europe and America, where novels have been written and read for a very long time, novels were written in African literature only in the twentieth century. So the history of the novel in African literature is relatively recent. Achebe also says that the relationship between readers and writers in Africa is complex and cannot be as easily defined as it is in Europe.

            Chinua Achebe says that his purpose in writing this essay is to explain society’s expectations from writers. He begins by saying that there is a belief in Africa, Europe and America that there were very few Africans who were interested in reading novels. It was believed that Africans were more interested in reading only textbooks. Achebe makes it very clear that African writers do not have to write for foreign readers. Then he goes on to say that his famous novel Things Fall Apart had sold very well in Nigeria. Only 800 copies of the book had been sold in Britain.

            Achebe says that most of his people, the African or Nigerian people who read his novels were young and considered Achebe to be their teacher. He refers to a letter written to him by a young man called Buba Yero Mafindi. Mafindi had written to Achebe that he had enjoyed reading Achebe’s novels Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. He expected that Achebe would write more such novels.

            He goes on to write about a particular reader in Ghana in Africa who had wanted Achebe to include questions and answers at the end of his novel Things Fall Apart, so that he could prepare easily for the school examinations. Achebe hopes that there would be just a few readers like this who expected the novelist to provide questions and answers also along with the novel.  Then there was a young woman teacher who had read No Longer At Ease and was unhappy with the story because the hero of the novel had not been married off to the girl he loved, in the novel. She was deeply invested in the novel because she believed that if Chinua Achebe had depicted the hero of No Longer at Ease getting married to the woman he loved, then it would have inspired other young women in real life to believe that there were at least a few men who had the courage to break away from customs and traditions and do the right thing.

            Achebe was disturbed by the young woman’s accusation. He had never thought that his novel had a role to play in educating and inspiring people. Then again, he makes it clear that no writer must agree to everything dictated by the audience. The writer must have the courage and the will power to disagree with society and write what he thinks and feels is right. Achebe states that different societies have different needs and demands. He gives the example of a White, Western singer who sang a song called I Ain’t Gonna Wash for A Week. Achebe wondered about the relevance of the idea behind the song. Then he realises that the singer belonged to a society that had at one time said that cleanliness is next to godliness. So this particular singer’s song was an act of rebellion against his society’s strong emphasis upon cleanliness. Achebe says that African society did not consider cleanliness to be next to godliness, so he didn't have to worry about his people.

            Achebe says that the greatest weakness of African society was its acceptance of its own racial inferiority. He is angry that Africans accept the belief that they are inferior to the people of the White race. He says that Africans must look inward and understand that they are not inferior to the Whites. This feeling of inferiority had come into the minds of the African people after they became slaves of the White race who had ruled over them. He gives one or two examples to prove this. He remembers an incident in his village in the 1940s, when his father was young. The Christians in the village had been shocked when there was a performance of Nigerian dances at the local girls’ school for a Christian festival. Usually, they used to have a Maypole dance, something that is purely White European and Christian. Most of the converted, well-to-do Christian people of the village looked down upon the traditional pottery and crafts of Nigeria and used kerosene tins or containers.

            Achebe writes about the experience of his teacher wife who taught at an English school. She asked a boy as to why he had written about the winter when he actually wanted to write about the Harmattan winds that blow in Nigeria. He said that if he had written about something Nigerian, then his friends would make fun of him. So he had written about the winter season that he knew nothing about. Achebe says that his people must accept and recognise the fact that poems, essays, novels and short stories can and must be written about the Nigerian customs, weather, food, dance, tradition and winds also.

            He says that he has realised and understood his purpose as a writer. He must help his people, the people of Nigeria and of the larger continent of Africa to realise that they are not inferior to the White people. They must be made to understand and realise that they are in fact far better than the White race and must develop what Jean- Paul Sartre called the anti-racist racism. He says that it is the duty of writers like him to re-educate and create self-affirmation in the minds of the African people.