Achebe's Interview

The most meaningful take away of today's discussion, in my opinion, is how the English Language is important and the powerful effect has on people. After Nigeria got Colonised by the British, English became the most spoken language there. Therefore, in  order for Achebe to reach out to his audience and express his feelings about colonisation to all, he had to utilise the English Language. It was a must for him to utilise the coloniser's language in favour of the people and against the colonisers. Furthermore he accentuates the importance of literature and the effect of it on the readers. He says that when a person is able to sympathise and relate to someone else that is completely unknown and far away, that is the true effect of literature right there and it is something beautiful. In addition, going back to the importance of the English language to his novel is that he uses it to create an image of how pure his community was before the colonisers occupied it and to create the idea of culture authenticity. 

"What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders."

This quotes specifically can be used as evidence from the text in order to support my point of view or it can be used as a form to tool in order to demonstrate that even though it may not be the most important pert of the Achebe Interview, he was still reviling a pretty powerful message indirectly to us. Even though that the interview was not about literature, people forget that if it wasn’t for literature his book wouldn’t have existed. Personally I think that the fact that he accentuates what literature does and how it perform its wonders demonstrates what his young self was aiming to do while he was writing to do. This statement aim is to make the audience aware of his goal and make them aware that he reached it.