Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may b...
Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensively.
The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use...
My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five years to...
In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely w...
There is no story that is not true.
I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wr...
The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.
The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act li...
Nothing puzzles God
When we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five years to d...
When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendere...
I don't care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.
Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering...
Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.