Surprise

We discussed An African Voice today. It is a transcript of a interview with author of Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe.  Though the biggest surprise came from the text itself. One of the questions and its answer really stood out to me. "You have been called the progenitor of modern African novel, and things fall apart has maintained its resonance in the decades since it was written. Have you been surprised by the effect the book has had?". The response was something along the lines of yes, the wide variety of people surprised me. This may just speak louder than the book. Chinua Achebe, an author whose whole purpose is to write against the demonization of the colonized, was surprised that it was not only his people who had experienced this sort of oppression and demonization. The demonization is so thorough that even those who are oppressed don't realize there are others. That is why people like Chinua Achebe, and works like Things Fall Apart are so important. The humanization of all people and their pasts are necessary to help up move forward, because once we forget the mistakes of the past we open ourselves to remake them.