Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Call for Papers: International Conference on New Perspectives in Cameroon Literature?

Yaounde, 15-17 April 2009

Co-organised by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Buea, the Department of African Literature of the University of Yaoundé I and the Research Group on African & Diaspora Consciousness (GRIAD) of the University of Buea.

In collaboration with the Réseau Discours d'Afrique & LASELDI (Laboratory), Université de Franche-Comté, France.

50 Years After "Things Fall Apart": A Chat with Chinua Achebe

By Joyce Ashuntantang, PhD. (Scribbles from the Den Exclusive)
                        
“Okonkwo was well known through out the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his clan by throwing Amalinze the cat”.

Dr. Ashuntantang with the legendary Chinua Achebe

With these words Achebe began Things Fall Apart and introduced the world to modern African literature.  For some of us these words have become sacred and the author, Chinua Achebe, a demigod.

Chinua Achebe: Long Way From Home

Originally published in The Guardian Newspaper

Chinua Achebe, 'the father of modern African literature', talks to Ed Pilkington about inventing a new language, his years in exile from his beloved Nigeria - and why he changed his name from Albert

By rights I should be talking to Chinua Achebe in Ogidi, his home town in Nigeria. He should be telling me about his efforts as chairman of the village council to build schools, improve the water and bring health to the people. We should be talking about whether and when the rains will come, and how the yam harvest is doing this year.

Instead, we are sitting in a bungalow on the banks of the Hudson, upriver from New York, surrounded by clapboard houses, rolling green hills and cows chewing the cud. The nearest restaurants have names such as Rose's Kitchen, Pat's Place and Hickory. As I arrive, Achebe is sitting at his desk at the window overlooking a gravel front drive.

Ngozi Adichie Wins 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction

LONDON - Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won Britain's Orange Prize for fiction by women, becoming the first African to take the award in its 12-year history, organizers said Wednesday.

Adichie, 29, also the youngest author to have won the prize, was awarded for novel "Half of a Yellow Sun," set during the Nigeria-Biafra conflict of the 1960s.

She beat out finalists including India's Kiran Desai and American writer Anne Tyler for the $60,000 [29 million FCFA], awarded for a novel by a woman published in English. "Yellow Sun" was a finalist earlier this year for the National Book Critics Circle fiction prize.

Check the previous posting for my review of Half of a Yellow Sun originally posted in September 2006.