THE home state of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, the “father of modern African literature”, who died last week in the United States, wants him to be buried in his native community, an official said Saturday.
— rawstory.com
The family of Achebe, who had an uneasy relationship with his home country, has not announced burial plans following the 82-year-old’s death on Thursday.
“He is a renowned promoter of the African culture. He cannot but be buried in his native home community,” Mike Udah, spokesman for the governor of Anambra Achebe’s south-eastern home state, said.
“The idea of him being buried outside his community is totally ruled out.” Best known internationally for his novel Things Fall Apart, which depicts the clash between British rule and traditional Igbo culture in his native south-eastern Nigeria, Achebe was also a staunch critic of corruption in the country.
He had lived and worked as a professor in the United States in recent years. A 1990 car accident left him in a wheelchair and limited his travel.
