--Chinua Achebe, from "The African Writer and the English Language" (1975)

1. [Achebe begins by describing a 1952 Conference of African Writers in which he participated.] What all this suggests to me is that you cannot cram African literature into a small, neat definition. I do not see African literature as one unit but as a group of associated units - in fact the sum total of all the national and ethnic literatures of Africa.

2. A national literature is one that takes the whole nation for its province and has a realized or potential audience throughout its territory. In other words a literature that is written in the national language. An ethnic literature is one which is available to one ethnic group within the nation. If you take Nigeria as an example, the national literature, as I see it, is written in English; and the ethnic literatures are in Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Efik, Ijaw, etc. etc.

3. [. . . ] I have indicated somewhat offhandedly that the national literature of Nigeria and of many countries in Africa is, or will be, written in English. This may sound like a controversial statement, but it isn't. All I have done is to look at the reality of present-day Africa. [. . .]

4. What are the factors which have conspired to place English in the position of national language in many parts of Africa? Quite simply the reason is that these nations were created in the first place by the intervention of the British, which, I hasten to add, is not saying that the peoples comprising these nations were invented by the British.

5. The country which we know as Nigeria today began not so very long ago as the arbitrary creation of the British. [. . .] Let us give the devil his due: colonialism in Africa disrupted many things, but it did create big political units where there were small, scattered ones before. Nigeria had hundreds of autonomous communities ranging in size from the vast Fulani Empire founded by Usman dan Fodio in the north to tiny village entities in the east. Today it is one country.

6. Of course there are areas of Africa where colonialism divided up a single ethnic group among two or even three powers. But on the whole it did bring together many peoples that had hereto gone their several ways. And it gave them a language with which to talk to one another. If it failed to give them a song, it at least gave them a tongue, for sighing. There are not many countries in Africa today where you could abolish the language of the erstwhile colonial powers and still retain the facility for mutual communication. Therefore those African writers who have chosen to write in English or French are not unpatriotic smart alecks with an eye on the main chance - outside their own countries. They are by-products of the same process that made the new nation-states of Africa.

7. You can take this argument a stage further to include other countries of Africa. The only reason why we can even talk about African unity is that when we get together we can have a manageable number of languages to talk in - English, French, Arabic.

8. [. . .] Those of us who have inherited the English language may not be in a position to appreciate the value of the inheritance. Or we may go on resenting it because it came as part of a package deal which included many other items of doubtful value and the positive atrocity of racial arrogance and prejudice which may yet set the world on fire. But let us not in rejecting the evil throw out the good with it.

9. [. . .]I think I have said enough to give an indication of my thinking on the importance of the world language which history has forced down our throats. Now let us look at some of its most serious handicaps. And let me say straightaway that one of the most serious handicaps is not the one people talk about most often, namely, that it is impossible for anyone ever to use a second language as effectively as his first. [, , ,] Of course, it is true that the vast majority of people are happier with their first language than with any other. But then the majority of people are not writers. We do have enough examples of writers who have performed the feat of writing effectively in a second language. [. . .]

10. The first name that comes to mind is Olauda Equiano, better known as Gustavus Vassa, the African. Equiano was an Ibo, I believe from the village of Iseke in the Orlue division of Eastern Nigeria. He was sold as a slave at a very early age and transported to America. Later he bought his freedom and lived in England. In 1789 he published his life story, a beautifully written document which, among other things, set down for the Europe of his time something of the life and habit of his people in Africa, I an attempt to counteract the lies and slander invented by some Europeans to justify the slave trade.

11. [Achebe discusses other West African writers-in-English, moving to the contemporary poet (and later martyr) Christopher Okigbo. Part of Okigbo's poem "Limits" is offered as an example of the exciting creative potential of writing in English.}

    Suddenly becoming talkative
    like weaverbird
    Summoned at offside of
    dream remembered
    Between sleep and waking
    I hand up my egg-shells
    To you of palm grove,
    Upon whose bamboo towers hang
    Dripping with yesterupwine
    A tiger mask and a nude spear . . .

    Queen of the damp half night,
    I have had my cleansing.
    Emigrant with air-borne nose,
    The he-goat-on-heat.

12. I do not see any signs of sterility anywhere here. What I do see is a new voice coming out of Africa, speaking of African experience in a world-wide language. So my answer to the question Can an African ever learn English well enough to be able to use it effectively in creative writing? is certainly yes. If on the other hand you ask: Can he ever learn to use it like a native speaker? I should say, I hope not. It is neither necessary nor desirable for him to be able to do so. 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 the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.