Dear Chancellor's Distinguished (Endowed) Professor Obioma (Sister Obi):
For your CALL below, I promptly and whole-heartedly concur with you by saying AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!!! After all, the DISCUSSIONS are not helpful for some of us, who have always held both Professors Achebe and Soyinka (the two great African Writers) in the highest esteem, just as I am discussing in the manuscript of my intellectual memoirs, which is to be published soon!
Do I have to be a Nigerian citizen to have the highest respect for both Writers, whose works combine to make outsiders continue to respect African Literature or Writing? For my spouse (Yvette) and me -- who benefitted from the warm, elder-brotherly relationships with both Professors Achebe and Soyinka at International P.E.N. annual meetings (as bona fide and active members) the current EXHUMED discussions border on SACRILEGE of the first or highest order! The Akans of Ghana may call such discussions "asembonee" (a discussion with no good omen), while my Igbo friends may call it "Ero" (?), while Bab Ijebu of Palmgrove, near Yaba, would call it a "bruku" (?) discussion!
Thank you, Distinguished Professor Obioma, for calling for a CEASEFIRE in these UNHELPFUL discussions, especially with respect for the wonderful and professionally-fulfilled families of both Great Writers! AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!
In the sagacious words of VC Aluko: And there you have it!
A.B. Assensoh, Oregon, USA.
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 6:28 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; wolesoyinkasociety@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NaijaPolitics] Nobel Prize Committee doctors Soyinka's interview calling Achebe a monster, who would hang a Nobel Laureate
PLEASE let us end this undignified discussion NOW before we spit more venom. Chinua Achebe is no longer with us. PLEASE show some sensitivity and respect.
Obi
Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Distinguished Professor
Department of World Languages and Cultures
Women's Studies Program
Indiana University School of Liberal Arts
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
425 University Blvd, CA 543A
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: 317-278-2038/317-274-0062; Fax: 317-278-7375
nnameka@iupui.edu; www.iupui.edu
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 4:10 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; wolesoyinkasociety@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NaijaPolitics] Nobel Prize Committee doctors Soyinka's interview calling Achebe a monster, who would hang a Nobel Laureate
Toyin,
I guess it's cultural and that's one of the things that this imp Uduma Kalu isn't capable of understanding - to the extent of attributing such perfidy to Wole Soyinka and the Swedish Academy, to think that Mr Soyinka could say such a thing about Chinua Achebe as if he thought that the late Chinua was some sort of Lucifer, primitive warlord, butcher or crucifier. I would like to assure Uduma Kalu that in the whole wide world of literature (in all languages) Chinua Achebe was not even a remote rival to Wole Soyinka for the Nobel Prize just before 1986 – or that the Swedish Academy would jump over Soyinka who had already won all that there was to win in drama - within the Commonwealth and that include Ireland. That the Swedish Academy would jump over Soyinka to award the prize to Achebe is a preposterous idea. Perish the thought! Nor did Chinua Achebe's output rival the quality of Mr Soyinka's output before or after 1986.
In 1979 when Mr Soyinka was in Stockholm attending the P.E.N. conference I asked him about himself and the Nobel Prize and he told me, " I also have my favourites" - and of course I don't think that Achebe is or was one of them. May his soul rest in peace.
Even the stories of the alleged rivalry between Salieri and Mozart never sank so low...
The nearest I can come to explaining this bizarreness is that Udama (sounds like Osama if it's terrorism on your mind) just as Sani Abacha could sound perilously close to someone hearing Chinua Achaba – if that someone is a little hard of hearing or if in that context that's what someone who thinks that Soyinka is " jealous" of Achebe would mistakenly hear what he wants to hear – that Mr. Soyinka would be so crude.
Like in Joel Osteen joke (and you'd catch the joke better if your heard Joel Osteen - with his Texas accent, telling it:
JOEL OSTEEN: "I heard about this 92-year-old man. He wasn't feeling up to par, and he went to the doctor for a checkup. A few days later, the doctor saw him out walking in the park. He had this beautiful young lady by his side, and he seemed as happy as can be. The doctor said, wow, you sure are feeling a lot better, aren't you? He said, yes, doctor. I'm just taking your orders. You said get a hot mama and be cheerful. The doctor said, I didn't say that. I said you got a heart murmur. Be careful"
On Tuesday, 2 December 2014 01:05:22 UTC+1, oluifayantra wrote:
Uduma Kalu,
Soyinka on Achebe
With controversial issues like the case you are making, a way to help clinch one's argument is to take a screen shot, a picture of the web page where the evidence being referred to is and tender that evidence to make one's case.
That way, even if the evidence is altered, one has a picture of its previous state.
As it is, all we have is your claim and that of the chap at the link you gave that Soyinka made that unlikely statement.
You also gave a link to the Nobel Prize website as a source where the evidence can be found, in seeming contradiction to your claim that the evidence has been removed from that site.
If any such evidence, not just allegations, exists, people would like to see them.
The claim you are making and the story you and the writer you linked are building out of the claim is a practically impossible claim bcs Soyinka's attitude to Achebe and his references to Achebe are well known.
Soyinka has never been petty in relation to Achebe.
On what seems to be the effort of the writer at the link you gave to see Soyinka as tribalistic, take note that Soyinka was in jail for most of the war bcs the Federal govt believed his conduct and orientation was against their interests in the prosecution of the war, a view that is almost certainly factual.
He has consistently made a case against the massacre of the Igbos in Northern Nigeria, one of the causes of the Nigerian Civil War.
Soyinka and Achebe : Scope of Achievement
On the Nobel Prize, Soyinka is clearly a greater writer than Achebe.
I think the evidence is incontrovertible.
In terms of depth of creative power across various literary genres, the number of works and variety of genres in which Soyinka is able to reach his highest creative capacities, and the sheer variety of literary techniques he is able to skilfully employ as represented by each of these highest notes of creative expression and in his range of work in general, Soyinka is far ahead of Achebe.
Soyinka has great works of global stature in almost every genre, except perhaps prose fiction, where Achebe is stronger.
Even then, in the history of African literature, Soyinka's prose fiction must be mentioned on account of its subjects, themes and its technical creativity.
In prose fiction, Achebe's greatest works, in my view of those I have read, are the novel Arrow of God and the short story, "The Madman".
These are works that can stand beside the greatest works in world literature, not equal to them all, but not paling beside the power of those other giants.
Things Fall Apart is a great work, too, but I wonder if its as powerful as Arrow of God.
I have not read his Anthills of the Savannah and so cant comment on it.
The other genre where Achebe has great works is the essay.
His greatest essays, in my view, of those known to me, are two essays on classical Igbo philosophy, "Chi in Igbo Cosmology", "The Igbo World and its Art" and another in which he draws on Fulani mythology, "Language and the Destiny of Man".
One could add his essay on Christopher Okigbo " Dont Let Him Die".
His other essays are good, some very good perhaps, but I wont rank them at the level of those other tree.
Achebe is likely to have other essays which I have not read either bcs they are unpublished or I have not seen them in publication.
In poetry, he has some impressive poems, most memorable being "Refugee Mother and Child" but I doubt if his other poems stand out. The poems of his I know of were all published in one collection. I dont know of others outside that collection.
I have not read Achebe's There was a Country and so cant comment on it, but it would make little or no difference to the case I am making.
Soyinka, on the other hand, if he had written only the three philosophical essays out of the five, I think, in Myth, Literature and the African World, if he had published only his poetry in Shuttle in the Crypt, only his autobiographical prose work The Man Died, or only his play Death and the Kings Horseman, would have earned a place among the greatest in world literature from the earliest times to the present.
One could add his Idanre and other Poems as a work that must be mentioned in African literature.
I have not read some of Soyinka's famous works such as his play The Road and his autobiographical Ibadan, among others.
The consistency of his standard across genres, however, implies adding such works strengthens my assessment.
When you add Soyinka's other essays as those in Art, Dialogue and Outrage, his full complement of serious plays, from The Swamp Dwellers to Madmen and Specialists, and perhaps others published after those, and his comic plays, the Jero plays and others perhaps, the landscape is clear.
That's my view at least.
Soyinka and Achebe : Critical Relationships With Informing World Views
Achebe may be seen, in his best work, as approaching philosophical themes in a more tentative, more critical, more questioning manner than Soyinka, while Soyinka's work may be seen as boosted by his total identification with the philosophical ideas he was working with.
Within that context, Achebe may be seen as not drawing on the scope of creativity Soyinka does bcs Achebe is less certain of the validity of the self assurance of the Igbo world view he drew on, preferring to challenge its integrity in the name of respect for both human dignity and the paradoxes of human life and nature, while Soyinka was fully immersed in the celebration of Yoruba philosophy and spirituality.
He reaches great heights with this and with ideational distillations, later in his career, that go beyond his focus in Yoruba thought.
Perhaps I could revise my views later in considering Achebe as a more modern writer, achieving a greater balance of intellect, faith and imagination in relation to belief systems.
thanks
toyin
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 8:48 PM, Uduma Kalu orgaran...@yahoo.com [NaijaPolitics] <NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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