http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/22/opinion/opinion-botstein-achebe/index.html?eref=edition&utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=cnni (CNN) -- The death of Chinua Achebe represents
more than the loss of a great writer. Achebe was
perhaps the first to give voice with elegance, a
poetic prose, and startling insight to the other
side of the world which most Western readers
encounter in Joseph Conrad.
For the first time, through the success of
Achebe's best-known book, "Things Fall Apart," a
world both distinctive and familiarly human as
well as uniquely African won the hearts of an
otherwise ignorant and insensitive and largely
condescending reading public in Europe and
North America, regarding African history and
culture.
It is a pity that not more of Achebe's prose is as
well-known as "Things Fall Apart." At the same
time, Achebe took his place in the pantheon of
great writers with one acknowledged
masterpiece, alongside Melville's "Moby Dick" and
Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre."
But Achebe's contribution was not merely literary.
Unlike most writers, he displayed few traces of
narcissism. He was committed to his people and
his community. He did not shy away from political
controversy, and he did so in a manner that was
unforgettable.
He was soft spoken, gracious to a fault, generous.
His charisma was one that mixed authority with
kindness. He seemed to possess no limits to
patience. He made his interlocutors and students
feel that they were as important as he was.
Unlike so many he did not internalize the
brutalities and prejudices of oppressors only to
visit the very same quality on others when the
oppression vanished. Perhaps this was a function
of his personality and his natural nobility and
pride in his heritage. But it was also a function of
his Christian faith and his commitment to the
vocation of teaching and writing.
Chinua Achebe came to Bard after suffering an
accident that left him paralyzed from the waist
down. By coming to the United States he was
able to secure the proper medical care, and at
Bard he became a member of an academic
community as teacher and colleague. He used his
prestige and presence to ensure that African
history and literature would take their proper
place in the education of undergraduates.
One of Achebe's most fervent admirers has been
Nelson Mandela, who once described the sense of
hope he derived from reading Achebe in prison.
What Mandela saw in Achebe was the
characteristic that inhabits all great literature:
details that seem very particular retain their
uniqueness in the hands of a great writer.
But through the poetry of the prose what seems
utterly foreign and unfamiliar becomes
recognizable and profoundly thought-provoking.
Time and place are transcended without the loss
of authentic particularity. These qualities are what
have made great writers great, whether they be
George Eliot or Tolstoy.
Achebe, drawing from his heritage and traditions,
used his talent and gift of imagination to generate
a visual and moral landscape entirely unfamiliar to
most readers. His achievement was both historic
and personal.
If there was one dimension of disappointment
that one could detect in Chinua Achebe, it was
the fact that he was famous for one great book
when in fact he had written a whole series of
great books. He suffered the same frustration that
is perhaps more common among composers who
become associated with one piece to the
exclusion of the rest of the music they have
written.
One hopes that Chinua Achebe's death will spark
a renewal of interest beyond "Things Fall Apart."
That novel will remain a staple of world literature.
Readers should be encouraged to look at the
novels Achebe wrote aftewards. The simplicity of
his language, the disarming lyricism, and acuity
of perception define his greatness.
But in the end Achebe was in the best sense a
moralist. Not a preacher, but a writer who drew
his readers into contemplating the possibilities of
how they might lead a better life with a greater
commitment to justice, to civility, to respect, and
to simple decency.

Seun! Seun! Seun! What the hell is Moby Joystick? Seun!