I went to bed Thursday night to the news that Chinua Achebe had
died. Many of us in Trinidad and Tobago may know nothing about
Africa or being African, but we know Okonkwo, his most famous
character from his most famous novel.Things Fall Apart is one of
those rare books where if the words seminal, masterpiece,
classic and canon are used to describe it, the description would
actually be apt. That novel was my introduction to Africa. Not
the Africa showed on television at nights that showed
malnourished children and their parents lined up for food, while
words like famine, refugee camps and ethnic warfare were bandied
about. Achebe taught me that Africa had, not just one, but many
cultures and civilizations long before the Europeans arrived to
dismantle it. He would go on to write several novels, poetry and
essays; all of which explored Africa before and after
colonization and before and after independence. What happened to
Africa in the aftermath of European colonization and
independence bears striking resembl