There was a Country, in my opinion, is not a book that is predisposed to place us all at daggers-drawn.
Unexpectedly, however, people must request for the head of the writer who is inclined towards unveiling some bitter truths. It didn't start today. The following words by Ngugi Wa Thiong'O may be just a startling revelation to the root of our people's responses:>>>
"When
I...used to write plays and novels that were only critical of the
racism in the colonial system, I was praised, I was awarded prizes, and
my novels were in the syllabus. But when toward the seventies, I started writing in a language understood by peasants, and in an idiom understood by them and I started questioning the very foundations of
imperialism and of foreign domination of Kenya economy and culture, I
was sent to Kamiti Maximum Security Prison."
Obviously, Nigerians' admiration for Achebe and his works, which was next to nothing, is rapidly whittling, upon the arrival of his newest book. Some hammer-wielding critics have even attacked my
posts with some derogatory remarks such as accusing Achebe of being a victim of senility; a proponent of misrepresentation of facts/history, et al.
I would rather advise such people with Soyinka's words in "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Tradition", thus: "Pretenders to the crown of Pontifex Maximus of African Poetics must learn to mind the thorns...they must penetrate into what constitutes (Nigerian History) or be contradicted by their own limitations and superficial understanding of (it)."
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