title: Hideaki Anno

text: The show did not garner high ratings in Japan at its initial time slot, but after being moved to a later, more adult-oriented venue, it gained considerable popularity. Timing constraints at Gainax also forced Anno to replace the planned ending of "Evangelion" with two episodes set in the main characters' minds. In 1997, Gainax launched a project to re-adapt "Evangelion"s scrapped ending into a feature-length film. Budgeting issues left the film unfinished, and the completed 27 minutes of animation were included as the second act of "". In response, Anno received several letters both of encouragement and criticism. Eventually, the project culminated in "The End of Evangelion", a three-act film that served as a finale to "Neon Genesis Evangelion". In September 1999, Anno appeared on the NHK TV-documentary "Welcome Back for an Extracurricular Lesson, Senpai!", answering some "Evangelion"-related questions, including the origin of the name "Evangelion", and teaching children about animation production.


title: Hideaki Anno

text: Anno wrote and directed "" (2021), launched in March 2021, after being rescheduled twice due to COVID-19 pandemic. He stated that Shinji's story was completed, but mentioned that he had more ideas set in "Evangelion"'s world.


title: Hideaki Anno

text: After "Evangelion", Anno directed the 1998 anime series "Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō" ("Kare Kano" for short, also known in English as "His and Her Circumstances"), the first Gainax television series to be directly adapted from previously written material. During the production of "Kare Kano", Anno became frustrated with the restrictions placed on the show by TV Tokyo after the Pokémon seizure incident and has not directed television anime since then. The director has also made forays into live-action films, beginning with "Love & Pop" (1998), a cinéma vérité-style film about enjo kosai ("compensated dating", a form of teenage prostitution) in Japan, of which a major portion was shot on miniature digital cameras with constantly shifting aspect ratios. He won Best New Director Award at 1998 Yokohama Film Festival for the film. Asumi Miwa who played the lead role won Best New Talent award respectively. He and his friend Masayuki also directed the documentary "GAMERA1999" which documented the production of "". His second live-action film, "Shiki-Jitsu" (2000) (""Ritual Day"" or ""Ceremonial Day""), is the story of a burnt-out former animation director (played by popular indie director Shunji Iwai) who falls in love with a woman disconnected from reality. Though an experimental work like "Love & Pop", this film was shot using the more traditional aspect ratio and has a generally more polished presentation, eschewing the cinéma vérité grittiness of Anno's first live-action film. This movie earned him Best Artistic Contribution Award at Tokyo International Film Festival and very positive reviews.


title: Hideaki Anno

text: Anno's third live-action film was "Cutie Honey", based on Go Nagai's 1973 manga and anime series. Released in the summer of 2004, this lighthearted fantasy/superhero film was a stark contrast to his earlier, more realist live-action works. Later in 2004, Anno supervised but did not direct the three-part OVA, "", which was respectively directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi (part 1), Takamichi Itō (part 2), and Masayuki (part 3). Also released in 2004 was the movie , in which Anno makes several acting cameos: as the student in the front row of the "Home Room!" skit sitting next to Hataru, in "Who's the Director?" as an animator who feels he is being overworked, and finally in "Singles Picnic" he is among the men awaiting females who never come.


title: Hideaki Anno

text: On August 1, 2006, Hideaki Anno's official website was updated with job listings for key animators and production staff at a company he founded, Studio Khara. In September 2006, Anno's departure from Gainax was reported in the October edition of the Japanese animation magazine "Newtype". On September 9, 2006, GAINAX's official website confirmed that "Rebuild of Evangelion" was in the works. The first three movies would be an alternate retelling of the TV series (including many new scenes, settings, backgrounds, characters), and the fourth movie would be a completely new conclusion to the story. Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki would direct the movies while Yoshiyuki Sadamoto would provide character designs and Ikuto Yamashita would provide mechanical designs. Shinji Higuchi would provide storyboards for the first movie. The first was launched in Summer 2007, and the second and third were planned to be launched in 2008, however, the second installment was released by itself on June 27, 2009. The third movie was to be released simultaneously with the fourth, instead, the third movie was released on November 17, 2012, and the release date for the fourth movie in Japan was announced to be June 27, 2020. On February 17, 2007, Anno published an official statement on the Japanese Yahoo Portal for the films regarding his personal involvement and goals in their production. In October 2007, Hideaki Anno resigned from Gainax. In 2011 Anno co-produced the Koinobori Pictures movie "Kantoku Shikkaku" ("Failed Director"), directed by Katsuyuki Hirano featuring Yumika Hayashi.


title: Hideaki Anno

text: In 2012, Anno was the curator of an exhibit entitled "Tokusatsu- Special Effects Museum-Craftsmanship of Showa and Heisei Eras Seen Through Miniatures", held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, featuring actual props and suits from many of Japan's tokusatsu films and TV shows. Anno also produced a short live-action film for the exhibit, entitled "A Giant Warrior Descends on Tokyo", featuring the Giant Warrior-God from Studio Ghibli's animated film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. He has gone on to work with Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli on several short films which have been shown at the Ghibli Museum. He also voiced the main character Jiro Horikoshi in Miyazaki's 2013 feature film "The Wind Rises". He also designed the "" sci-fi anime television series opening sequence. In 2014, Anno and Studio Khara launched "Japan Animator Expo", a series of original net animations made by various directors. In March 2015, it was announced that Anno would team up with close friend and Gainax cofounder Shinji Higuchi to write and codirect "Shin Godzilla", the 2016 reboot of Toho's "Godzilla" franchise.


title: Hideaki Anno

text: Anno has appeared in manga twice, both created by personal acquaintances. His wife, Moyoko Anno, wrote "Insufficient Direction", a chronicle of their courtship and marriage and depicting Anno's "true face" as "the founder of the otaku cult". In 2007, a college-age version of him appeared alongside other Gainax founders Hiroyuki Yamaga, Takami Akai, and Toshio Okada in the Kazuhiko Shimamoto manga "Aoi Honō". Anno attended Osaka University of Arts with Shimamoto. "Aoi Honō" was adapted into a live-action television drama in 2014, where Anno was played by actor Ken Yasuda. The 2014 animated series "Shirobako" has a walk-on appearance by a character named "Mitsuaki Kanno", a caricature of Anno.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a 2017 action-adventure first-person shooter video game developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released on 27 October 2017 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and was released on 29 June 2018 for Nintendo Switch. The eighth main entry in the "Wolfenstein" series and the sequel to 2014's "", the game is set in an alternate history which takes place in 1961 following the Nazi victory in the Second World War. The story follows war veteran William "B.J." Blazkowicz and his efforts to fight against the Nazi regime in the United States.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: The game is played from a first-person perspective and most of its levels are navigated on foot. The story is arranged in chapters, which players complete in order to progress. A binary choice in the prologue alters the game's entire storyline; some characters and small plot points are replaced throughout the timelines. The game features a variety of weapons, most of which can be dual wielded. A cover system is also present. Continuing from "The New Order", the development team aimed to characterize Blazkowicz for players to adopt his personality. Mick Gordon returned as the game's composer, and is joined by Martin Stig Andersen.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" was released to a positive critical response. Particular praise was directed at the characters, narrative, shooting mechanics, as well as the general presentation of the game. The game was nominated for multiple year-end awards, including nominations at the 35th Annual Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards 2017, the latter in which it received the accolade for "Best Action Game". Following the game's launch, MachineGames released "Freedom Chronicles", which is a collection of three downloadable content packs.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" is an action-adventure shooter game played from a first-person perspective. To progress through the story, players battle enemies throughout levels. The game utilizes a health system in which players' health is divided into separate sections that regenerate; if an entire section is lost, players must use a health pack to replenish the missing health. Players use melee attacks, firearms, and explosives to fight enemies, and may run, jump, crawl, and occasionally swim to navigate through the locations. Melee attacks can be used to silently take down enemies without being detected. Alternatively, players can engage in direct combat, which often results in an intense firefight between the two parties. Enemy commanders can call for reinforcements several times.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: A cover system can be used in combat as assistance against enemies. Players have the ability to lean around, over, and under cover, which can be used as a tactical advantage during shootouts and stealth levels. Stilts are also available during some game segments for a further tactical advantage. The game gives players a wide variety of weapon options; they can be found on the ground, retrieved from dead enemies, or removed from their stationary position and carried around. Weapon ammunition must be manually retrieved from the ground or from dead enemies. Players have access to a weapon inventory, which allows them to carry as many weapons as they find. Players have the ability to freely mix weapons for dual wielding, giving them an advantage over enemies by dealing twice as much damage. Players can also customize weapons through the use of upgrades. Scopes and suppressors can also be attached to weapons.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: During the final events of "", the Kreisau Circle retrieves a critically injured William "B.J." Blazkowicz (Brian Bloom) from Deathshead's fortress before destroying it with a nuclear cannon. Blazkowicz falls into a five-month-long coma. As he fades in and out of consciousness aboard the captured U-boat "Eva's Hammer", it is revealed that Anya, Blazkowicz's love interest, is pregnant with twins. The U-boat is attacked by SS-Obergruppenführer Irene Engel, a sadistic Nazi commander who captures Caroline and Fergus or Wyatt (depending on who the player let Deathshead kill in a flashback). Blazkowicz devises a plan to get himself captured and taken to Engel's airship, the "Ausmerzer", which is suspending the U-boat above water. Engel tries to have her daughter Sigrun decapitate Caroline, but the former refuses, resulting in Engel killing Caroline herself. Irene then tries to kill the other captive, Sigrun prevents it by tackling Engel, allowing Blazkowicz to use Caroline's armor. Blazkowicz disconnects "Eva's Hammer" from the "Ausmerzer" and flees back to the U-boat with Sigrun and Caroline's body.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: After Caroline's funeral, the group decides to carry out what would have been the next step in her plan to end the Nazi regime: liberate America and use it as a central base from which to free the rest of the world. The group sets out to contact a resistance group hiding in the Empire State Building amid the ruins of Manhattan, which was destroyed by a Nazi atomic bomb. Blazkowicz finds and recruits Grace Walker (Debra Wilson), a passionate, scarred African-American, and Norman "Super Spesh" Caldwell, a lawyer-turned-conspiracy theorist, parents to a baby girl named Abby. Grace informs the Circle of her plan to kill the top Nazi leaders by destroying the Oberkommando, in Roswell, New Mexico near the site of an unearthed Da'at Yichud cache. Blazkowicz travels to Roswell with a portable nuclear warhead, before heading to Super Spesh's hideout. Spesh takes him to his bunker and to a tunnel that leads to the Oberkommando, where Blazkowicz deposits the bomb in the base's reactor and detonates it.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: After escaping Roswell, he takes a detour to Mesquite, his hometown, to recover an heirloom ring. Blazkowicz's extremely abusive and racist father Rip (Glenn Morshower) appears and chastises him, justifying his abuse of Blazkowicz and his mother, and allowing her to be taken by the Nazis because she was Jewish, and that he intends to hand him over to the Nazis. Blazkowicz kills his father as Engel's forces arrive and he is captured once more while Engel keeps the ring for herself. Super Spesh later visits Blazkowicz under the guise of his lawyer, telling him of their plan to break him out. However, Engel kills Spesh, having known his ruse.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: After hallucinating a reunion with his mother, Blazkowicz is sentenced to death and beheaded at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. in front of millions in a televised event. However, the Kreisau Circle recovers his head and Set surgically grafts it onto a bioengineered Nazi super-soldier body. Blazkowicz breaks into a Nazi bunker hidden under New York, stealing a file on New Orleans, which is revealed to be a large ghetto. Blazkowicz travels there to gather several freedom fighters under the command of communist Horton Boone. They break out of the ghetto and escape on "Eva's Hammer". The Kreisau Circle considers capturing the "Ausmerzer" to prevent its use against the group's planned revolution, but realize that it would be nearly impossible due to an automated defense system called ODIN. The group plans to steal the codes to deactivate ODIN by traveling to Venus, where the codes are kept in a Nazi facility. Blazkowicz assumes the identity of an actor and is invited to Venus to participate in a propaganda film audition produced by Adolf Hitler (Norbert Weisser), who is looking for a suitable actor to play Blazkowicz. Blazkowicz retrieves the ODIN codes and returns to Earth to decipher them, and the Kreisau Circle throw him a birthday party upon arrival. The Kreisau Circle mounts an assault on the "Ausmerzer", where the resistance members disable ODIN and hijack its command systems. Blazkowicz and his team travel back to the ground, where Engel is on national television in California. Blazkowicz kills Engel and the Kreisau Circle proclaims the start of a revolution to liberate America.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: In a post-credits scene, Blazkowicz takes back his heirloom ring from Engel's body and proposes to Anya. The revolution is depicted pictorially during the credits sequence.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: The narrative theme of "The New Colossus" is "catharsis". Creative director Jens Matthies was intrigued by the juxtaposition of America, which was "founded on the idea of freedom", to be under totalitarian control. The development team also enjoyed exploring iconic American locations and events of the 1960s, such as diners and parades. The team attempted to make the enemies larger and more intimidating for players. The game features over 100 actors, whose performances were recorded using performance capture technology; about 40 hours of performances were recorded. The development team wanted to delve further into the character of protagonist William "B.J." Blazkowicz, for players to feel as though they are him. In the game's opening, Blazkowicz uses a wheelchair; the team was enthusiastic to include combat during these scenes, as a "testament to B.J.'s willpower". The game was developed using id Tech 6; the technology and animations required a complete overhaul from "The New Order", which used id Tech 5. The team also built a full body model of Blazkowicz, which can be seen from the first-person perspective.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: The developers stated that they did not intend the game to be a commentary on contemporary politics, other than a few jokes. However, commentators drew parallels between the game's premise and contemporary accounts of the rise of alt-right in the United States, particularly after the events of the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and the murder of counter-protestor Heather Heyer. Bethesda's marketing head Pete Hines stated that the game was "not written to be a commentary on current events, because no one – at MachineGames or at Bethesda – could predict what would happen". Hines further stated that they otherwise made no changes to the game, nor plan to change downloadable content for the game, based on these events.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: Mick Gordon, who previously scored the 2016 reboot of "Doom", returned to score "Wolfenstein II" along with newcomer Martin Stig Andersen, who previously scored the puzzle-platform game "Inside", along with special music contributions by Fredrik Thordendal, Pedro Macedo Camacho, who previously worked on "Star Citizen," and Christoffer Larsson. The official soundtrack was released digitally on 19 June 2018. Like the other game, the music is primarily industrial, with distorted synthesizers and reverbed electric guitars, with some rock influence.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: While the game itself was not intended to reference current events, Bethesda, supported by MachineGames, opted to use current attitudes towards Nazis from these events in its marketing of the title. Bethesda's Marketing VP Pete Hines stated: "We weren't going to hide from the fact our game is about killing Nazis and freeing the US from their rule, and if we can reference current events as part of talking about the game, so be it. Nazis are evil. We aren't afraid to remind people of that". The game adopted the phrase "Make America Nazi-Free Again", based on Donald Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again", as its primary advertising tagline. Other ads used the phrase "Not My America", a slogan used by groups protesting Trump's policies. The marketing campaign drew positive attention, but was criticized by members of the alt-right, as well as Trump supporters who said the advertisements unfairly associated them with Nazis. Responding to the negative feedback, Hines said, "we don't feel it's a reach for us to say Nazis are bad and un-American, and we're not worried about being on the right side of history here". He also said "people who are against freeing the world from the hate and murder of a Nazi regime probably aren't interested in playing Wolfenstein." "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" was originally teased at Bethesda's press conference during E3 2016. The game was officially announced at the E3 2017 conference in June 2017. The game was released on 27 October 2017 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. A 2018 release for Nintendo Switch was announced during the September 2017 Nintendo Direct presentation. The Nintendo Switch version was released on 29 June 2018. The game's collector's edition includes a Blazkowicz action figure, a steelbook, and a poster.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: For the German release of "The New Colossus", all Nazi symbols and references were removed; it is a criminal offence to display Nazi imagery on toys in Germany. The German software ratings board, Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle, later introduced the "social adequacy clause", which allowed the use of such imagery in relevant scenarios, reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Bethesda made the uncensored international version (which lacks German as a language option) available for purchase in Germany on 22 November 2019, while continuing to sell the censored and localised version separately.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: Three downloadable content packs, collectively titled "Freedom Chronicles", were released by MachineGames and Escalation Studios. Each pack introduces a new protagonist who join the resistance to fight against the Nazi regime in America. Bethesda added that the three DLC packs, alongside the prologue "Episode 0", will offer 9 hours of new content to players. The three DLC packs generally received mixed reviews from critics, with critics criticising their story, recycled environment, and map design.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: The game's announcement was met with praise from game journalists. Kat Bailey of "USGamer" named it the "best game of E3", while Nerdist's Dan Casey and "PC Gamer"s Evan Lahti listed it among their favorites. Oli Welsh of "Eurogamer" wrote that the game is "a bracing piece of trailer theatre with real character and daring". At IGN's Best of E3 2017 Awards, the game was awarded Best Shooter; it was also nominated for Game of Show and Best Trailer.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" was released to "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Chris Moyse's 8/10 score on "Destructoid" stated that "Impressive effort with a few noticeable problems holding it back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash." Michael Goroff's score of 8/10 on EGMNow said that ""Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" story and imaginative level design carry the burden of its quality on their shoulders, but they're backed up by solid shooter mechanics and really cool guns. While the experience as a whole might be inconsistent and sometimes frustrating, it's an experience worth having. After all, you get to blow up a bunch of Nazis. Also, did we mention the guns were really cool?" Jason Faulkner from Game Revolution gave the game a score of 4 out of 5 stars saying that ""Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" wraps up the feeling of a blockbuster movie in something you can interact with. There's a lot of games that do that, but the spectacle here is outstanding, and the fast-paced gunplay and compelling main story made me want more when the credits rolled. Killing Nazis is one of the most fun and wholesome things a person can do, and there's no better way than to do it with "Wolfenstein II"." Andy Hartup of GamesRadar+ awarded it 4.5 out of 5 stars stating that ""Wolfenstein II" offers slick shooting, plenty of spectacle, and heaps of fun characters to interact with. The plot is far from perfect, and levels are a touch dull, but overall it's a must-play." 9.1/10 was Dan Stapleton's score on IGN with the consensus: "The excellent shooting action in "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" is paired with a fantastically written and acted story." Samuel Roberts's 81/100 score on "PC Gamer" stated that ""The New Colossus" is a fun and frantic FPS, even if it doesn't feel quite as fresh as "The New Order" did." ""Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" jumps from breakneck bloodshed, to humour involving your endearing crew, with aplomb; a masterfully done sequel," was Colm Ahern's conclusion on VideoGamer.com with a score of 9/10.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: "Entertainment Weekly" placed "Wolfenstein II" at #10 on the list of the "Best Games of 2017", "Polygon" also placed it at #10 on their list of the 50 best games of 2017, and "GamesRadar+" ranked it eighth on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017, while "Eurogamer" ranked the game 20th on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017". EGMNow also ranked the game at #5 in their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: The game debuted in 4th place in the UK and Australian Sales charts, 5th in the New Zealand Sales charts and 14th in the U.S. sales charts.


title: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

text: On 10 June 2018, Bethesda Softworks announced "", a co-op sequel to "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" that released on 26 July 2019.


title: Xu Kai

text: Xu Kai (, born 5 March 1995), also known by his English name Kai Xu, is a Chinese actor and model. His most notable roles include the dramas "Story of Yanxi Palace" (2018), "The Legends" (2019), "Arsenal Military Academy" (2019), "Falling Into Your Smile" (2021), "Ancient Love Poetry" (2021) and "Royal Feast" (2022).


title: Xu Kai

text: In 2013, Xu won the championship in a print ads modeling contests held in Guangzhou. In 2016, he signed a contract with Huanyu Film, an entertainment company owned by Yu Zheng, and entered the entertainment industry. He was cast in his first television series "Zhaoge", where he played Yang Jian.


title: Xu Kai

text: In 2018, Xu starred in the historical romance drama "Untouchable Lovers", followed by palace drama "Story of Yanxi Palace", where he gained mainstream recognition with his role as Fucha Fuheng.


title: Xu Kai

text: In 2019, Xu made his big-screen debut in the romance film "Autumn Fairy Tale". The same year, Xu played his first lead role in xianxia drama "The Legends". Xu's role as a loyal and reticent demon prince in "The Legends" received positive reviews, and he experienced a rise in popularity. The same year, he starred in the youth military drama "Arsenal Military Academy". His performance in the drama earned him the Best Actor award at the Hengdian Film and TV Festival of China. Xu also starred in the xianxia drama "Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain", based on the manhua "Congqian Youzuo Lingjianshan". "Forbes China" listed Xu under their 30 Under 30 China 2019 list which consisted of 30 influential people under 30 years old who have had a substantial effect in their fields.


title: Xu Kai

text: In 2021, Xu leads in the Chinese e-sport romance comedy television series "Falling Into Your Smile" as Lu Si Cheng or Chessman, and leads in the Chinese Xianxia fantasy romance television series "Ancient Love Poetry" as Bai Jue / Qing Mu / Bo Xuan.


title: The Chronic

text: The Chronic is the debut studio album by the American hip hop producer and rapper Dr. Dre. It was released on December 15, 1992, by his record label Death Row Records and distributed by Interscope Records. Recording sessions took place in June 1992 at Death Row Studios in Los Angeles and at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood.


title: The Chronic

text: "The Chronic" was Dr. Dre's first solo album after he departed the hip hop group N.W.A and its label Ruthless Records over a financial dispute. It includes insults towards Ruthless and its owner, the former N.W.A member Eazy-E. It features many appearances by then-emerging American rapper Snoop Dogg, who used the album as a launch pad for his own solo career. The title derives from a slang term for high-grade cannabis, and its cover is an homage to Zig-Zag rolling papers.


title: The Chronic

text: "The Chronic" reached number three on the "Billboard" 200 and has been certified triple platinum with sales of three million copies in the United States, making Dre one of the top ten best-selling American performing artists of 1993. "The Chronic" spent eight months in the Billboard Top 10. The album's three singles became top ten "Billboard" singles. "Nuthin' but a ‘G’ Thang" reached number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number one on the Hot Rap Singles and Hot R&B Singles charts.


title: The Chronic

text: Dr. Dre's production popularized the G-funk subgenre within gangsta rap. "The Chronic" has been widely regarded as one of the most important and influential albums of the 1990s and one of the best-produced hip hop albums. In 2019, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: The Chronic

text: The production on "The Chronic" was seen as innovative and ground-breaking, and received universal acclaim from critics. AllMusic commented on Dr. Dre's efforts, "Here, Dre established his patented G-funk sound: fat, blunted Parliament-Funkadelic beats, soulful backing vocals, and live instruments in the rolling basslines and whiny synths" and that "For the next four years, it was virtually impossible to hear mainstream hip-hop that wasn't affected in some way by Dre and his patented G-funk." Unlike other hip hop acts (such as The Bomb Squad) that sampled heavily, Dr. Dre only utilized one or few samples per song. In "Rolling Stone"'s "The Immortals – The Greatest Artists of All Time", where Dr. Dre was listed at number 56, Kanye West wrote on the album's production quality: ""The Chronic" is still the hip-hop equivalent to Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life". It's the benchmark you measure your album against if you're serious."


title: The Chronic

text: Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" described the production, writing "The bottom register is swampy synthesizer bass lines that openly emulate Parliament-Funkadelic; the upper end is often a lone keyboard line, whistling or blipping incessantly. In between are wide-open spaces that hold just a rhythm guitar, sparse keyboard chords." Pareles observed that the songs "were smoother and simpler than East Coast rap, and [Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg] decisively expanded the hip-hop audience into the suburbs." Until this point, mainstream hip hop had been primarily party music (for example, Beastie Boys) or pro-empowerment and politically charged (for example, Public Enemy or X-Clan), and had consisted almost entirely of samples and breakbeats. Dr. Dre ushered in a new musical style and lyrics for hip hop. The beats were slower and mellower, samples from late 1970s and early 1980s funk music. By mixing these early influences with original live instrumentation, a distinctive genre known as G-funk was created.


title: The Chronic

text: The album's lyrics caused some controversy, as the subject matter included sexism and violent representations. It was noted that the album was a "frightening amalgam of inner-city street gangs that includes misogynist sexual politics and violent revenge scenarios".


title: The Chronic

text: Most of the N.W.A members were addressed on the album; Eazy-E and Ice Cube were dissed on the second single "Fuck Wit Dre Day", while MC Ren however was shouted out on the album's intro. Dr. Dre's dissing of former bandmate, Eazy-E, resulted in vicious lyrics, which were mainly aimed at offending his enemy with homosexual implications, although it was noted to have "a spirited cleverness in the phrasing and rhymes; in other words, the song is offensive, but it's "creatively" offensive".


title: The Chronic

text: Snoop Dogg, who had a significant role on the album, was praised for his lyrics and flow, and it was mentioned that "Coupled with his inventive rhymes, Snoop's distinctive style made him a superstar before he'd even released a recording of his own" and that his involvement was as important to the album's success as its production. Touré of "The New York Times" remarks that "While Snoop delivers rhymes delicately, the content is anything but. Growing up poor, often surrounded by violence, and having served six months in the Wayside County jail outside of Los Angeles (for cocaine possession) gave Snoop Dogg experiences upon which he draws." Snoop Dogg later commented on the "reality" of his lyrics, stating "My raps are incidents where either I saw it happen to one of my close homies or I know about it from just being in the ghetto. I can't rap about something I don't know. You'll never hear me rapping about no bachelor's degree. It's only what I know and that's that street life. It's all everyday life, reality."


title: The Chronic

text: Three singles were released from the album: "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang", "Fuck wit Dre Day" and "Let Me Ride".


title: The Chronic

text: "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" was released as the first single on November 19, 1992. It peaked at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and Hot Rap Singles. It sold over a million copies and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it Platinum on March 24, 1993. The song was nominated for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 1994 Grammy Awards, but lost to Digable Planets' "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)". Steve Huey of AllMusic named it ""the" archetypal G-funk single" and added "The sound, style, and performances of "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" were like nothing else on the early-'90s hip-hop scene." He praised Snoop Dogg's performance, stating "[Snoop Dogg's] flow was laconic and relaxed, massively confident and capable of rapid-fire tongue-twisters, but coolly laid-back and almost effortless at the same time". Today it is one of the most critically and commercially lauded hip-hop/rap songs of all time. It is rated the 134th best song of all time by Acclaimedmusic.net, and the sixth best hip-hop/rap song, and voted in a VH1 poll as the 13th best song of the 1990s.


title: The Chronic

text: "Fuck wit Dre Day (and Everybody's Celebratin')" was released as the second single on May 20, 1993, and like the previous single, it was a hit on multiple charts. It reached number eight on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number six on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. It sold over 500,000 units and the RIAA certified it Gold on October 8, 1993. Allmusic writer Steve Huey stated that the song was "a classic hip-hop single", citing Dr. Dre's production as "impeccable as ever, uniting his signature whiny synth melodies with a halting, descending bass line, a booming snare, and soulful female vocals in the background" and alluded to Snoop Dogg, stating "Attitude was something Snoop had by the boatload, his drawling, laid-back delivery projecting unassailable control – it sounded lazy even though it wasn't, and that helped establish Snoop's don't-give-a-damn persona." The track contains direct insults to rappers East coast rapper Tim Dog, 2 Live Crew member Luke, and Dre's former accomplices Eazy-E & Ice Cube.


title: The Chronic

text: "Let Me Ride" was released as a cassette single on September 13, 1993. It experienced moderate success on the charts, reaching number 34 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number three on the Hot Rap Singles. The song won Dr. Dre Best Rap Solo Performance at the 1994 Grammy Awards. On this song and "Nuthin but a "G" Thang", "Time" magazine noted that Dr. Dre's verses were delivered with a "hypnotically intimidating ease" and made the songs feel like "dusk on a wide-open L.A. boulevard, full of possibility and menace".


title: The Chronic

text: In a contemporary review for "Rolling Stone", Havelock Nelson wrote that the album "drops raw realism and pays tribute to hip-hop virtuosity." "Entertainment Weekly" said that it "storms with rage, strolls with confidence, and reverberates with a social realism that's often ugly and horrifying". Matty C of "The Source" claimed that Snoop Dogg's "Slick Rick-esque style" produces "new ground for West Coast MCs" and that the album is "an innovative and progressive hip-hop package that must not be missed." Edna Gundersen of "USA Today" found "Dre's prowess as beat-master and street preacher" to be "undeniable". Jonathan Gold of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that, although the rappers lack "quick wit" and "rhythmic virtuosity", Dre's artistry is "on a par with Phil Spector's or Brian Wilson's." Gold argued that, because Dre recreates rather than samples beats and instrumental work, the finished album's fidelity is not inflected by that of "scratchy R&B records that have been played a million times", unlike productions from East Coast hip hop.


title: The Chronic

text: Greg Kot was less enthusiastic in the "Chicago Tribune", deeming "The Chronic" superficial, unrefined entertainment, while writing that "Dre combines street potency with thuggish stupidity in equal measure." "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau dismissed it as "sociopathic easy-listening" and "bad pop music" whose innovation—Dre's departure from sampling—is not inspired by contemporary P-Funk, but rather blaxploitation soundtracks, which led him to combine preset bass lines with imitations of "Bernie Worrell's high keyb sustain, a basically irritating sound that in context always signified fantasy, not reality—stoned self-loss or, at a best Dre never approaches, grandiose jive." He felt that the brutal lyrical threats were vague and lacked detail, but that Snoop Dogg rhymed "drolly" and less dully than Dre. "Select"s Adam Higginbotham opined that "The Chronic" was not as strong as releases from other gangster rap artists such as Ice Cube and Da Lench Mob and found it neither as "musically sharp, nor as lyrically smart as the latter". His review concluded that the album sounded like "all the pedestrian bits from "The Predator"", but that it was still better than anything Eazy-E had released.


title: The Chronic

text: In a retrospective piece, Jon Pareles from "The New York Times" said that "The Chronic" and Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle" "made the gangsta life sound like a party occasionally interrupted by gunplay". AllMusic's Steve Huey compared Dr. Dre to his inspiration, George Clinton, stating "Dre's just as effortlessly funky, and he has a better feel for a hook, a knack that improbably landed gangsta rap on the pop charts". Rhapsody writer Brolin Winning named the album as "an untouchable masterpiece of California Gangsta Rap" and that it had "track after track of G-Funk gems". In "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was noted that "Dre funked up the rhymes with a smooth bass-heavy production style and the laid-back delivery of then-unknown rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg." "Time" magazine's Josh Tyrangiel states that Dr. Dre created "a sound that defined early 90s urban L.A. in the same way that Motown defined 60s Detroit". Laura Sinagra, writing in "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), said that "The Chronic" "features system-busting Funkadelic beats designed to rumble your woofer while the matter-of-fact violence of the lyrics blows your smoke-filled mind".


title: The Chronic

text: In 1994, "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" and "Let Me Ride" were nominated at the 36th Grammy Awards, with the latter winning Best Rap Solo Performance for Dr. Dre. That year, readers of "Hip Hop Connection" voted it the fourth best album of all time, leading the magazine to speculate, "In a few years' time, it could even be remembered as "the" best rap album of all time."


title: The Chronic

text: "The Chronic" was included in "Vibe" magazine's list of the 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century, and the magazine later included it in their list of the Top 10 Rap Albums of All Time, dubbing it a "decade-defining opus". The record was ranked eighth in "Spin" magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s", and in 2005, it was ranked at number thirty-five in their list of the "100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005". "Rolling Stone" ranked "The Chronic" at number 138 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and at 37 in their 2020 update. In 2005, MTV Networks listed "The Chronic" as the third greatest hip hop album in history. The following year, "Time" magazine named it as one of "The All-"Time" 100 Albums". In a retrospective issue, "XXL" magazine awarded "The Chronic" a perfect "XXL" rating. "The Source", who originally gave the album a rating of 4.5 out of 5 mics in 1993, would later include it in their list of the 100 Best Rap Albums; in 2008, the magazine's former editor Reginald Dennis remarked that he "would have given it a five" in retrospect—the magazine's editors had a strict rule forbidding five-mic ratings at the time—and that "no one could have predicted the seismic shift that this album would produce". "The Chronic" is listed in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: The Chronic

text: As of 2015, the album has sold 5.7 million copies in the United States, and was certified Triple Platinum by RIAA on November 3, 1993. It is Dr. Dre's second-bestselling album, as his follow-up album, "2001", was certified sextuple Platinum. The album first appeared on music charts in 1993, peaking on the "Billboard" 200 at number three, and peaking on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums at number one. "The Chronic" spent eight months in the Billboard Top 10. The album's three singles became top ten "Billboard" singles. "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" peaked at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and at number one on both the Hot Rap Singles and Hot R&B Singles charts. "Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')" became a top ten single on four different charts, including the Hot R&B Singles (number 6) and the Hot 100 (number 8).


title: The Chronic

text: "The Chronic" didn't chart on the UK Albums Chart until 2000, eight years after its original release, and peaked at number 43 in July 2004. It has sold 260,814 copies there. "The Chronic" re-entered the charts in 2003, peaking on the Ireland Albums Top 75 at number 48, and on the UK Albums Top 75 in 2004 at number 43.


title: The Chronic

text: Having split from N.W.A, Dr. Dre's first solo album established him as one of the biggest hip hop stars of his era. Yahoo! Music writer S.L. Duff wrote of the album's impact on his status in hip hop at the time, stating "Dre's considerable reputation is based on this release, alongside his production technique on Snoop's Doggystyle" and his early work with N.W.A. Whatever one thinks of the over-the-top bravado rapping, the tracks and beats Dre assembled are beyond reproach". "The Chronic" brought G-funk to the mainstream – a genre defined by slow bass beats and melodic synthesizers, topped by P-Funk samples, female vocals, and a laconic, laid-back lyrical delivery referred to as a "lazy drawl". The album takes its name from a slang term for premium grade cannabis, chronic. The album cover is an homage to Zig-Zag rolling papers. Robert Christgau said that, although he "can't stand" it, he respects "The Chronic" "for its influence and iconicity".


title: The Chronic

text: The album launched the careers of West Coast hip hop artists, including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and Warren G, Dr. Dre's stepbrother – all of whom pursued successful commercial careers. "The Chronic" is widely regarded as the album that re-defined West Coast hip hop, demonstrated gangsta rap's commercial potential as a multi-platinum commodity, and established G-funk as the most popular sound in hip hop music for several years after its release, with Dr. Dre producing major albums that drew heavily on his production style. The album's success established Death Row Records as a dominant force in 1990s hip hop. It has been re-released 3 times, first as a remastered CD, then as a remastered DualDisc with enhanced stereo and four videos, and in 2009 as "The Chronic Re-Lit" with a bonus DVD containing a 30-minute interview and 7 unreleased tracks. The singles "Fuck wit Dre Day" and "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" are in best-selling video game "" on the fictional radio station Radio Los Santos. On April 20, 2020, the album was distributed across all major streaming services, as it had previously been an Apple Music exclusive since 2015.


title: The Chronic

text: However, on March 13, 2022, both "The Chronic" and Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle" would be erased from music streaming platforms and were turned into NFTs.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and "magnum opus", "Things Fall Apart" (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with "Things Fall Apart", his "No Longer at Ease" (1960) and "Arrow of God" (1964) complete the so-called "African Trilogy"; later novels include "A Man of the People" (1966) and "Anthills of the Savannah" (1987). He is often referred to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Born in Ogidi, British Nigeria, Achebe's childhood was influenced by both Igbo traditional culture and postcolonial Christianity. He excelled in school and attended what is now the University of Ibadan, where he became fiercely critical of how European literature depicted Africa. Moving to Lagos after graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and garnered international attention for his 1958 novel "Things Fall Apart". In less than 10 years he would publish four further novels through the publisher Heinemann, with whom he began the Heinemann African Writers Series and galvanized the careers of African writers, such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Flora Nwapa.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe sought to escape the colonial perspective that framed African literature at the time, and drew from the traditions of the Igbo people, Christian influences, and the clash of Western and African values to create a uniquely African voice. He wrote in and defended the use of English, describing it as a means to reach a broad audience, particularly readers of colonial nations. In 1975 he gave a controversial lecture, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"", which was a landmark in postcolonial discourse. Published in "The Massachusetts Review", it featured criticism of Albert Schweitzer and Joseph Conrad, whom Achebe described as "a thoroughgoing racist."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe supported Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The subsequent Nigerian Civil War ravaged the populace, and he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon became disillusioned by his frustration over the continuous corruption and elitism he witnessed. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and returned to the US in 1990 after a car crash left him partially disabled. He stayed in the US in a nineteen-year tenure at Bard College as a professor of languages and literature. Winning the 2007 Man Booker International Prize, from 2009 until his death he was Professor of African Studies at Brown University.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe's work has been extensively analyzed and a vast body of scholarly work discussing it has arisen. In addition to his seminal novels, Achebe's "oeuvre" includes numerous short stories, poetry, essays and children's books. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. Among the many themes his works cover are culture and colonialism, masculinity and femininity, politics, and history. His legacy is celebrated annually at the Chinua Achebe Literary Festival.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Chinua Achebe was born on 16 November 1930 and baptised as Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe. His father, Isaiah Okafo Achebe, was a teacher and evangelist, and his mother, Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam, was the daughter of a blacksmith from Awka, a leader among church women, and a vegetable farmer. His birthplace was Saint Simon's Church, Nneobi, which was near the Igbo village of Ogidi; the area was part of British Colonial Nigeria at the time. Isaiah was the nephew of Udoh Osinyi, a leader in Ogidi with a "reputation for tolerance"; orphaned as a young man, Isaiah was an early Ogidi convert to Christianity. Both Isaiah and Janet stood at a crossroads of traditional culture and Christian influence, which made a significant impact on the children, especially Chinua. His parents were converts to the Protestant Church Mission Society (CMS) in Nigeria. As such, Isaiah stopped practicing Odinani, the religious practices of his ancestors, but continued to respect its traditions. The Achebe family had five other surviving children, named in a fusion of traditional words relating to their new religion: Frank Okwuofu, John Chukwuemeka Ifeanyichukwu, Zinobia Uzoma, Augustine Ndubisi, and Grace Nwanneka. After the youngest daughter was born, the family moved to Isaiah Achebe's ancestral town of Ogidi, in what is now the state of Anambra.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition and an integral part of the community. Achebe's mother and his sister Zinobia told him many stories as a child, which he repeatedly requested. His education was furthered by the collages his father hung on the walls of their home, as well as almanacs and numerous books—including a prose adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" () and an Igbo version of Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678). Achebe eagerly anticipated traditional village events, like the frequent masquerade ceremonies, which he would later recreate in his novels and stories.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 1936, Achebe entered St Philips' Central School in the Akpakaogwe region of Ogidi for his primary education. Despite his protests, he spent a week in the religious class for young children, but was quickly moved to a higher class when the school's chaplain took note of his intelligence. One teacher described him as the student with the best handwriting and the best reading skills in his class. Achebe had his secondary education at the prestigious Government College Umuahia, in the present day Abia State of Nigeria. He attended Sunday school every week and the special services held monthly, often carrying his father's bag. A controversy erupted at one such session, when apostates from the new church challenged the catechist about the tenets of Christianity. Achebe enrolled in Nekede Central School, outside of Owerri, in 1942; he was particularly studious and passed the entrance examinations for two colleges.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 1948, Nigeria's first university opened in preparation for the country's independence. Known as University College (now the University of Ibadan), it was an associate college of the University of London. Achebe was admitted as the university's first intake and given a bursary to study medicine. During his studies, Achebe became critical of European literature about Africa, particularly Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". He decided to become a writer after reading "Mister Johnson" by Joyce Cary because of the book's portrayal of its Nigerian characters as either savages or buffoons. Achebe recognised his dislike for the African protagonist as a sign of the author's cultural ignorance. He abandoned medicine to study English, history, and theology, a switch which lost him his scholarship and required extra tuition fees. To compensate, the government provided a bursary, and his family donated money—his older brother Augustine gave up money for a trip home from his job as a civil servant so Achebe could continue his studies.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe's debut as an author was in 1950 when he wrote a piece for the "University Herald", the university's magazine, entitled "Polar Undergraduate". It used irony and humour to celebrate the intellectual vigour of his classmates. He followed with other essays and letters about philosophy and freedom in academia, some of which were published in another campus magazine called "The Bug". He served as the "Herald" editor during the 1951–52 school year. He wrote his first short story that year, "In a Village Church" (1951), an amusing look at the Igbo synthesis between life in rural Nigeria with Christian institutions and icons. Other short stories he wrote during his time at Ibadan—including "The Old Order in Conflict with the New" (1952) and "Dead Men's Path" (1953)—examine conflicts between tradition and modernity, with an eye toward dialogue and understanding on both sides. When the professor Geoffrey Parrinder arrived at the university to teach comparative religion, Achebe began to explore the fields of Christian history and African traditional religions.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: After the final examinations at Ibadan in 1953, Achebe was awarded a second-class degree. Rattled by not receiving the highest level, he was uncertain how to proceed after graduation and returned to his hometown of Ogidi. While pondering possible career paths, Achebe was visited by a friend from the university, who convinced him to apply for an English teaching position at the Merchants of Light school at Oba. It was a ramshackle institution with a crumbling infrastructure and a meagre library; the school was built on what the residents called "bad bush"—a section of land thought to be tainted by unfriendly spirits.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: As a teacher he urged his students to read extensively and be original in their work. The students did not have access to the newspapers he had read as a student, so Achebe made his own available in the classroom. He taught in Oba for four months. He left the institution in 1954 and moved to Lagos to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), a radio network started in 1933 by the colonial government. He was assigned to the Talks Department to prepare scripts for oral delivery. This helped him master the subtle nuances between written and spoken language, a skill that helped him later to write realistic dialogue.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Lagos made a significant impression on him. A huge conurbation, the city teemed with recent migrants from the rural villages. Achebe revelled in the social and political activity around him and began work on a novel. This was challenging, since very little African fiction had been written in English, although Amos Tutuola's "Palm-Wine Drinkard" and Cyprian Ekwensi's "People of the City" were notable exceptions. A visit to Nigeria by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956 highlighted issues of colonialism and politics, and was a significant moment for Achebe.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Also in 1956, Achebe was selected to attend the staff training school for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). His first trip outside Nigeria was an opportunity to advance his technical production skills, and to solicit feedback on his novel (which was later split into two books). In London, he met a novelist named Gilbert Phelps, to whom he offered the manuscript. Phelps responded with great enthusiasm, asking Achebe if he could show it to his editor and publishers. Achebe declined, insisting that it needed more work.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Back in Nigeria, Achebe set to work revising and editing his novel; he titled it "Things Fall Apart", after a line in the poem "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. He cut away the second and third sections of the book, leaving only the story of a yam farmer named Okonkwo who lives during the colonization of Nigeria and struggles with his father's debtor legacy. He added sections, improved various chapters, and restructured the prose.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 1957 he sent his only copy of his handwritten manuscript (along with the £22 fee) to a London manuscript typing service he had seen an advertisement for in "The Spectator". He did not receive a reply from the typing service, so he asked his boss at the NBS, Angela Beattie, to visit the company during her travels to London. She did, and angrily demanded to know why the manuscript was lying ignored in the corner of the office. The company quickly sent a typed copy to Achebe. Beattie's intervention was crucial for his ability to continue as a writer. Had the novel been lost, he later said, "I would have been so discouraged that I would probably have given up altogether." The next year Achebe sent his novel to the agent recommended by Gilbert Phelps in London. It was sent to several publishing houses; some rejected it immediately, claiming that fiction from African writers had no market potential. The executives at Heinemann read the manuscript and hesitated in their decision to publish the book. An educational adviser, Donald MacRae, read the book and reported to the company that: "This is the best novel I have read since the war." Heinemann published 2,000 hardcover copies of "Things Fall Apart" on 17 June 1958. According to Alan Hill, employed by the publisher at the time, the company did not "touch a word of it" in preparation for release.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The book was received well by the British press, and received positive reviews from critic Walter Allen and novelist Angus Wilson. Three days after publication, "The Times Literary Supplement" wrote that the book "genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from the inside". "The Observer" called it "an excellent novel", and the literary magazine "Time and Tide" said that "Mr. Achebe's style is a model for aspirants". Initial reception in Nigeria was mixed. When Hill tried to promote the book in West Africa, he was met with scepticism and ridicule. The faculty at the University of Ibadan was amused at the thought of a worthwhile novel being written by an alumnus. Others were more supportive; one review in the magazine "Black Orpheus" said: "The book as a whole creates for the reader such a vivid picture of Igbo life that the plot and characters are little more than symbols representing a way of life lost irrevocably within living memory." When "Things Fall Apart" was published in 1958, Achebe was promoted at the NBS and put in charge of the network's Eastern region coverage. That same year Achebe began dating Christiana Chinwe (Christie) Okoli, a woman who had grown up in the area and joined the NBS staff when he arrived. The couple moved to Enugu and began to work on his administrative duties.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 1960 Achebe published "No Longer at Ease", a novel about a civil servant named Obi, grandson of "Things Fall Apart"s main character, who is embroiled in the corruption of Lagos. Obi undergoes the same turmoil as much of the Nigerian youth of his time; the clash between traditional culture of his clan, family, and home village against his government job and modern society. Later that year, Achebe was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for six months of travel, which he called "the first important perk of my writing career".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe used the fellowship to tour East Africa. He first travelled to Kenya, where he was required to complete an immigration form by checking a box indicating his ethnicity: European, Asiatic, Arab, or Other. Shocked and dismayed at being forced into an "Other" identity, he found the situation "almost funny" and took an extra form as a souvenir. Continuing to Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now united in Tanzania), he was frustrated by the paternalistic attitude he observed among non-African hotel clerks and social elites. Achebe found in his travels that Swahili was gaining prominence as a major African language. Radio programs were broadcast in Swahili, and its use was widespread in the countries he visited. Nevertheless, he found an "apathy" among the people toward literature written in Swahili. He met the poet Sheikh Shaaban Robert, who complained of the difficulty he had faced in trying to publish his Swahili-language work. In Northern Rhodesia (now called Zambia), Achebe found himself sitting in a whites-only section of a bus to Victoria Falls. Interrogated by the ticket taker as to why he was sitting in the front, he replied, "if you must know I come from Nigeria, and there we sit where we like in the bus." Upon reaching the waterfall, he was cheered by the black travellers from the bus, but he was saddened by their being unable to resist the policy of segregation at the time.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Two years later, Achebe travelled to the United States and Brazil as part of a Fellowship for Creative Artists awarded by UNESCO. He met with a number of writers from the US, including novelists Ralph Ellison and Arthur Miller. In Brazil, he discussed the complications of writing in Portuguese with other authors. Achebe worried that the vibrant literature of the nation would be lost if left untranslated into a more widely spoken language.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: On his return to Nigeria in 1961, Achebe was promoted at the NBS to the position of Director of External Broadcasting. One of his primary duties was to help create the Voice of Nigeria (VON) network, which broadcast its first transmission on New Year's Day 1962. VON struggled to maintain neutrality when Nigerian Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa declared a state of emergency in the Western Region, responding to a series of conflicts between officials of varying parties. Achebe became particularly saddened by the evidence of corruption and silencing of political opposition. The same year he attended an executive conference of African writers in English at the Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda. He met with literary figures including Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, Nigerian playwright and novelist Wole Soyinka, and US poet Langston Hughes. Among the topics of discussion was an attempt to determine whether the term African literature ought to include work from the diaspora, or solely that writing composed by people living within the continent itself. Achebe indicated that it was not "a very significant question", and that scholars would do well to wait until a body of work were large enough to judge. Writing about the conference in several journals, Achebe hailed it as a milestone for the literature of Africa, and highlighted the importance of community among isolated voices on the continent and beyond.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: While at Makerere, Achebe was asked to read a novel written by a student named James Ngugi (later known as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o) called "Weep Not, Child". Impressed, he sent it to Alan Hill at Heinemann, which published it two years later to coincide with its paperback line of books from African writers. Achebe also recommended works by Flora Nwapa. Achebe became the General Editor of the African Writers Series, a collection of postcolonial literature from African writers. As these works became more widely available, reviews and essays about African literature—especially from Europe—began to flourish.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe published an essay entitled "Where Angels Fear to Tread" in the December 1962 issue of "Nigeria Magazine" in reaction to critiques African work was receiving from international authors. The essay distinguished between the hostile critic (entirely negative), the amazed critic (entirely positive), and the conscious critic (who seeks a balance). He lashed out at those who critiqued African writers from the outside, saying: "no man can understand another whose language he does not speak (and 'language' here does not mean simply words, but a man's entire world view)." In September 1964 he attended the Commonwealth Literature conference at the University of Leeds, presenting his essay "The Novelist as Teacher".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe and Christie married on 10 September 1961, holding the ceremony in the Chapel of Resurrection on the campus of the University of Ibadan. Their first child, a daughter named Chinelo, was born on 11 July 1962. They had a son, Ikechukwu, on 3 December 1964, and another boy, Chidi, on 24 May 1967. When the children began attending school in Lagos, their parents became worried about the worldview—especially with regard to race—expressed at the school, particularly through the mostly white teachers and books that presented a prejudiced view of African life. In 1966, Achebe published his first children's book, "Chike and the River", to address some of these concerns.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe's third book, "Arrow of God", was published in 1964. The idea for the novel came in 1959, when Achebe heard the story of a Chief Priest being imprisoned by a District Officer. He drew further inspiration a year later when he viewed a collection of Igbo objects excavated from the area by archaeologist Thurstan Shaw; Achebe was startled by the cultural sophistication of the artifacts. When an acquaintance showed him a series of papers from colonial officers, Achebe combined these strands of history and began work on "Arrow of God". Like Achebe's previous works, "Arrow" was roundly praised by critics. A revised edition was published in 1974 to correct what Achebe called "certain structural weaknesses".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Like its predecessors, the work explores the intersections of Igbo tradition and European Christianity. Set in the village of Umuaro at the start of the twentieth century, the novel tells the story of Ezeulu, a Chief Priest of Ulu. Shocked by the power of British intervention in the area, he orders his son to learn the foreigners' secret. Ezeulu is consumed by the resulting tragedy. In a letter written to Achebe, US writer John Updike expressed his surprised admiration for the sudden downfall of "Arrow of God"s protagonist and praised the author's courage to write "an ending few Western novelists would have contrived". Achebe responded by suggesting that the individualistic hero was rare in African literature, given its roots in communal living and the degree to which characters are "subject to non-human forces in the universe".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe's fourth novel, "A Man of the People", was published in 1966. A bleak satire set in an unnamed African state which has just attained independence, the novel follows a teacher named Odili Samalu from the village of Anata who opposes a corrupt Minister of Culture named Nanga for his Parliament seat. Upon reading an advance copy of the novel, Achebe's friend John Pepper Clark declared: "Chinua, I "know" you are a prophet. Everything in this book has happened except a military coup!" Soon afterward, Nigerian Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu seized control of the northern region of the country as part of a larger coup attempt. Commanders in other areas failed, and the plot was answered by a military crackdown. A massacre of three thousand people from the eastern region living in the north occurred soon afterwards, and stories of other attacks on Igbo Nigerians began to filter into Lagos.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The ending of his novel had brought Achebe to the attention of military personnel, who suspected him of having foreknowledge of the coup. When he received word of the pursuit, he sent his wife (who was pregnant) and children on a squalid boat through a series of unseen creeks to the Eastern stronghold of Port Harcourt. They arrived safely, but Christie suffered a miscarriage at the journey's end. Chinua rejoined them soon afterward in Ogidi. These cities were safe from military incursion because they were in the southeast, a part of the region that would later secede.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Once the family had resettled in Enugu, Achebe and his friend Christopher Okigbo started a publishing house called Citadel Press to improve the quality and increase the quantity of literature available to younger readers. One of its first submissions was a story called "How the Dog was Domesticated", which Achebe revised and rewrote, turning it into a complex allegory for the country's political tumult. Its final title was "How the Leopard Got His Claws". Years later a Nigerian intelligence officer told Achebe, "of all the things that came out of Biafra, that book was most important."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In May 1967, the southeastern region of Nigeria broke away to form the Republic of Biafra; in July the Nigerian military attacked to suppress what it considered an unlawful rebellion. The Achebe family narrowly escaped disaster several times during the war, including a bombing of their house. During August 1967, Okigbo was killed fighting in the war. Achebe was shaken considerably by the loss; in 1971 he wrote "Dirge for Okigbo", originally in the Igbo language but later translated to English.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: As the war intensified, the Achebe family was forced to leave Enugu for the Biafran capital of Aba. He continued to write throughout the war, but most of his creative work during this time took the form of poetry. The shorter format was a consequence of living in a war zone. "I can write poetry," he said, "something short, intense more in keeping with my mood [...] All this is creating in the context of our struggle." Many of these poems were collected in his 1971 book "Beware, Soul Brother". One of his most famous, "Refugee Mother and Child", spoke to the suffering and loss that surrounded him. Dedicated to the promise of Biafra, he accepted a request to serve as foreign ambassador, refusing an invitation from the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University in the US. Meanwhile, their contemporary Wole Soyinka was imprisoned for meeting with Biafran officials, and spent two years in jail. Speaking in 1968, Achebe said: "I find the Nigerian situation untenable. If I had been a Nigerian, I think I would have been in the same situation as Wole Soyinka is—in prison." In his ambassador role, Achebe traveled to European and North American cities to promote the Biafra cause.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Conditions in Biafra worsened as the war continued. In September 1968, the city of Aba fell to the Nigerian military and Achebe once again moved his family, this time to Umuahia, where the Biafran government had relocated. He was chosen to chair the newly formed National Guidance Committee, charged with the task of drafting principles and ideas for the post-war era. In 1969, the group completed a document entitled "The Principles of the Biafran Revolution", later released as "The Ahiara Declaration". In October of the same year, Achebe joined writers Cyprian Ekwensi and Gabriel Okara for a tour of the United States to raise awareness about the dire situation in Biafra. They visited thirty college campuses and conducted numerous interviews. Although the group was well received by students and faculty, Achebe was shocked by the harsh racist attitude toward Africa he saw in the US. At the end of the tour, he said that "world policy is absolutely ruthless and unfeeling".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The beginning of 1970 saw the end of the state of Biafra. On 12 January, the military surrendered to Nigeria, and Achebe returned with his family to Ogidi, where their home had been destroyed. He took a job at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and immersed himself once again in academia. He was unable to accept invitations to other countries, however, because the Nigerian government revoked his passport due to his support for Biafra. The Achebe family had another daughter on 7 March 1970, named Nwando.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: After the war, Achebe helped start two magazines in 1971: the literary journal "Okike", a forum for African art, fiction, and poetry; and "Nsukkascope", an internal publication of the university. Achebe and the "Okike" committee later established another cultural magazine, "Uwa Ndi Igbo", to showcase the indigenous stories and oral traditions of the Igbo community. In February 1972 he released "Girls at War", a collection of short stories ranging in time from his undergraduate days to the recent bloodshed. It was the 100th book in Heinemann's African Writers Series.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The University of Massachusetts Amherst offered Achebe a professorship in September 1972, and the family moved to the United States. Their youngest daughter was displeased with her nursery school, and the family soon learned that her frustration involved language. Achebe helped her face what he called the "alien experience" by telling her stories during the car trips to and from school. As he presented his lessons to a wide variety of students (he taught only one class, to a large audience), he began to study the perceptions of Africa in Western scholarship: "Africa is not like anywhere else they know [...] there are no real people in the Dark Continent, only "forces" operating; and people don't speak any language you can understand, they just grunt, too busy jumping up and down in a frenzy".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe expanded this criticism when he presented a Chancellor's Lecture at Amherst on 18 February 1975, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"". Decrying Joseph Conrad as "a bloody racist", Achebe asserted that Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" dehumanises Africans, rendering Africa as "a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognisable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril." Achebe also discussed a quotation from Albert Schweitzer, a 1952 Nobel Peace Prize laureate: "That extraordinary missionary, Albert Schweitzer, who sacrificed brilliant careers in music and theology in Europe for a life of service to Africans in much the same area as Conrad writes about, epitomizes the ambivalence. In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother.' And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The lecture was controversial immediately following his talk. Many English professors in attendance were upset by his remarks; one elderly professor reportedly approached him, said: "How dare you!", and stormed away. Another suggested that Achebe had "no sense of humour", but several days later Achebe was approached by a third professor, who told him: "I now realize that I had never really read "Heart of Darkness" although I have taught it for years."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe's criticism has become a mainstream perspective on Conrad's work. The essay was included in the 1988 Norton critical edition of Conrad's novel. Editor Robert Kimbrough called it one of "the three most important events in "Heart of Darkness" criticism since the second edition of his book." Critic Nicolas Tredell divides Conrad criticism "into two epochal phases: before and after Achebe." Asked frequently about his essay, Achebe once explained that he never meant for the work to be abandoned: "It's not in my nature to talk about banning books. I am saying, read it—with the kind of understanding and with the knowledge I talk about. And read it beside African works." Interviewed on National Public Radio with Robert Siegel in October 2009, Achebe stated that he was still critical of "Heart of Darkness". He tempered this criticism in a discussion entitled "'Heart of Darkness' is inappropriate", stating: "Conrad was a seductive writer. He could pull his reader into the fray. And if it were not for what he said about me and my people, I would probably be thinking only of that seduction."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: After his service at UMass Amherst and a visiting professorship at the University of Connecticut, Achebe returned to the University of Nigeria in 1976, where he held a chair in English until his retirement in 1981. When he returned to the University of Nigeria, he hoped to accomplish three goals: finish the novel he had been writing, renew the native publication of "Okike", and further his study of Igbo culture. In an August 1976 interview, he lashed out at the archetypal Nigerian intellectual, stating that the archetype was divorced from the intellect "but for two things: status and stomach. And if there's any danger that he might suffer official displeasure or lose his job, he would prefer to turn a blind eye to what is happening around him." In October 1979, Achebe was awarded the first-ever Nigerian National Merit Award.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: After his 1981 retirement, he devoted more time to editing "Okike" and became active with the left-leaning People's Redemption Party (PRP). In 1983, he became the party's deputy national vice-president. He published a book called "The Trouble with Nigeria" to coincide with the upcoming elections. On the first page, Achebe says: "the Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility and to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership." The elections that followed were marked by violence and charges of fraud. Asked whether he thought Nigerian politics had changed since "A Man of the People", Achebe replied: "I think, if anything, the Nigerian politician has deteriorated." After the elections, he engaged in a heated argument—which almost became a fistfight—with Sabo Bakin Zuwo, the newly elected governor of Kano State. He left the PRP and kept his distance from political parties, expressing sadness with his perception of the dishonesty and weakness of the people involved.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: He spent most of the 1980s delivering speeches, attending conferences, and working on his sixth novel. In 1986 he was elected president-general of the Ogidi Town Union; he reluctantly accepted and began a three-year term. In the same year, he stepped down as editor of "Okike".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 1987 Achebe released his fifth novel, "Anthills of the Savannah", about a military coup in the fictional West African nation of Kangan. A finalist for the Booker Prize, the novel was hailed in the "Financial Times": "in a powerful fusion of myth, legend and modern styles, Achebe has written a book which is wise, exciting and essential, a powerful antidote to the cynical commentators from 'overseas' who see nothing ever new out of Africa." An opinion piece in the magazine "West Africa" said the book deserved to win the Booker Prize, and that Achebe was "a writer who has long deserved the recognition that has already been accorded him by his sales figures." The prize went instead to Penelope Lively's novel "Moon Tiger".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: On 22 March 1990, Achebe was riding in a car to Lagos when an axle collapsed and the car flipped. His son Ikechukwu and the driver suffered minor injuries, but the weight of the vehicle fell on Achebe and his spine was severely damaged. He was flown to the Paddocks Hospital in Buckinghamshire, England, and treated for his injuries. In July doctors announced that although he was recuperating well, he was paralyzed from the waist down and would require the use of a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Soon afterward, Achebe became the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; he held the position for more than fifteen years. Throughout the 1990s, Achebe spent little time in Nigeria but remained actively involved in the country's politics, denouncing the usurpation of power by General Sani Abacha.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 2000 Achebe published "Home and Exile", a semi-biographical collection on both his thoughts on life away from Nigeria, as well as discussion of the emerging school of Native American literature. In October 2005, the London "Financial Times" reported that Achebe was planning to write a novella for the "Canongate Myth Series", a series of short novels in which ancient myths from myriad cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in June 2007. The judging panel included US critic Elaine Showalter, who said he "illuminated the path for writers around the world seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies"; and South African writer Nadine Gordimer, who said Achebe's "early work made him the father of modern African literature as an integral part of world literature." The award helped correct what "many perceived as a great injustice to African literature, that the founding father of African literature had not won some of the key international prizes." For the International Festival of Igbo culture, Achebe briefly returned to Nigeria to give the Ahajioku Lecture. Later that year he published "The Education of A British-Protected Child", a collection of essays. In autumn he joined the Brown University faculty as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies. In 2010, Achebe was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for $300,000, one of the richest prizes for the arts.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In 2012, Achebe published "There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra". The work re-opened the discussion about the Nigerian Civil War. It would be his last publication during his lifetime; Achebe died after a short illness on 21 March 2013 in Boston, United States. An unidentified source close to the family said that he was ill and was hospitalised in the city. "The New York Times" described him in his obituary as "one of Africa's most widely read novelists and one of the continent's towering men of letters." The BBC wrote that he was "revered throughout the world for his depiction of life in Africa". He was buried in his hometown of Ogidi.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The style of Achebe's fiction draws heavily on the oral tradition of the Igbo people. He incorporates folk tales into his stories, exposing community values in both the content and the form of the storytelling. For example, the tale about the Earth and Sky in "Things Fall Apart" emphasises the interdependency of the masculine and the feminine. Although Nwoye enjoys hearing his mother tell the tale, Okonkwo's dislike for it is evidence of his imbalance.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe used proverbs to describe the values of the rural Igbo tradition. He includes them throughout the narratives, repeating points made in conversation. Critic Anjali Gera notes that the use of proverbs in "Arrow of God" "serves to create through an echo effect the judgement of a community upon an individual violation." The use of such repetition in Achebe's urban novels, "No Longer at Ease" and "A Man of the People", is less pronounced.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe's short stories are not as widely studied as his novels, and Achebe himself did not consider them a major part of his work. In the preface for "Girls at War and Other Stories", he writes: "A dozen pieces in twenty years must be accounted a pretty lean harvest by any reckoning." Like his novels, the short stories are heavily influenced by the oral tradition. They often have morals emphasising the importance of cultural traditions, as influenced by folk tales.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: During decolonisation in the 1950s, a debate about choice of language erupted and pursued authors around the world. Achebe's work is scrutinised for its subject matter, insistence on a non-colonial narrative, and use of English. In his essay "English and the African Writer", Achebe discusses how the process of colonialism—for all its ills—provided colonised people from varying linguistic backgrounds "a language with which to talk to one another". As his purpose is to communicate with readers across Nigeria, he uses "the one central language enjoying nationwide currency". Using English also allowed his books to be read in the colonial ruling nations.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe recognises the shortcomings of what Audre Lorde called "the master's tools". In another essay he notes:


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In another essay, he refers to James Baldwin's struggle to use the English language to accurately represent his experience and his realisation that he needed to take control of the language and expand it. Achebe's novels were a foundation for this process; by altering syntax, usage, and idiom, he transforms the language into a distinctly African style. In some spots this takes the form of repetition of an Igbo idea in standard English parlance; elsewhere it appears as narrative asides integrated into descriptive sentences.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: In his early writing, a depiction of the Igbo culture itself is paramount. Critic Nahem Yousaf highlights the importance of these depictions: "Around the tragic stories of Okonkwo and Ezeulu, Achebe sets about textualising Igbo cultural identity". The portrayal of indigenous life is not simply a matter of literary background, he adds: "Achebe seeks to produce the effect of a precolonial reality as an Igbo-centric response to a Eurocentrically constructed imperial 'reality' ". Certain elements of Achebe's depiction of Igbo life in "Things Fall Apart" match those in Olaudah Equiano's autobiographical "Narrative". Responding to charges that Equiano was not actually born in Africa, Achebe wrote in 1975: "Equiano was an Igbo, I believe, from the village of Iseke in the Orlu division of Nigeria".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: A prevalent theme in Achebe's novels is the intersection of African tradition (particularly Igbo varieties) and modernity, especially as embodied by European colonialism. For example, the village of Umuofia in "Things Fall Apart" is violently shaken with internal divisions when the white Christian missionaries arrive. Nigerian English professor Ernest N. Emenyonu describes the colonial experience in the novel as "the systematic emasculation of the entire culture". Achebe later embodied this tension between African tradition and Western influence in the figure of Sam Okoli, the president of Kangan in "Anthills of the Savannah". Distanced from the myths and tales of the community by his Westernised education, he does not have the capacity for reconnection shown by the character Beatrice.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The colonial impact on the Igbo in Achebe's novels is often affected by individuals from Europe, but institutions and urban offices frequently serve a similar purpose. The character of Obi in "No Longer at Ease" succumbs to colonial-era corruption in the city; the temptations of his position overwhelm his identity and fortitude. Having shown his acumen for portraying traditional Igbo culture in "Things Fall Apart", Achebe demonstrated in "No Longer at Ease" an ability to depict modern Nigerian life.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The standard Achebean ending results in the destruction of an individual, which leads to the downfall of the community. Odili's descent into the luxury of corruption and hedonism in "A Man of the People", for example, is symbolic of the post-colonial crisis in Nigeria and elsewhere. Even with the emphasis on colonialism, Achebe's tragic endings embody the traditional confluence of fate, individual and society, as represented by Sophocles and Shakespeare.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe seeks to portray neither moral absolutes nor a fatalistic inevitability. In 1972, he said: "I never will take the stand that the Old must win or that the New must win. The point is that no single truth satisfied me—and this is well founded in the Igbo world view. No single man can be correct all the time, no single idea can be totally correct." His perspective is reflected in the words of Ikem, a character in "Anthills of the Savannah": "whatever you are is never enough; you must find a way to accept something, however small, from the other to make you whole and to save you from the mortal sin of righteousness and extremism." In a 1996 interview, Achebe said: "Belief in either radicalism or orthodoxy is too simplified a way of viewing things ... Evil is never all evil; goodness on the other hand is often tainted with selfishness."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: The gender roles of men and women, as well as society's conceptions of the associated concepts, are frequent themes in Achebe's writing. He has been criticised as a sexist author, in response to what many call the uncritical depiction of traditionally patriarchal Igbo society, where the most masculine men take numerous wives, and women are beaten regularly. Paradoxically, Igbo society immensely values individual achievement but also sees the ownership over or acquisition of women as a signifier of success. The African studies scholar Rose Ure Mezu suggests that Achebe is representing the limited gendered vision of the characters, or that he purposefully created exaggerated gender binaries to render Igbo history recognizable to international readers. Conversely, the scholar Ajoke Mimiko Bestman has stated that reading Achebe through the lens of womanism is "an afrocentric concept forged out of global feminism to analyze the condition of Black African women" which acknowledges the patriarchal oppression of women and highlights the resistance and dignity of African women, which enables an understanding of Igbo conceptions of gender complementarity.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: According to Bestman, in "Things Fall Apart" Okonkwo's furious manhood overpowers everything "feminine" in his life, including his own conscience, while Achebe's depiction of the "chi", or personal god, has been called the "mother within". Okonkwo's father was considered an "agbala"—a word that refers to a man without title, but is also synonymous with 'woman'. Okonkwo's feminization of his father's laziness and cowardice is typical of the Igbo perspective on any man seen as unsuccessful. His obsession with maleness is fueled by an intense fear of femaleness, which he expresses through the physical and verbal abuse of his wives, his violence towards his community, his constant worry that his son Nwoye is not manly enough, and his wish that his daughter Ezinma had been born a boy. The women in the novel are obedient, quiet, and absent from positions of authority—despite the fact that Igbo women were traditionally involved in village leadership. The desire for feminine balance is highlighted by Ani, the earth goddess, and the extended discussion of "Nneka" ("Mother is supreme") in chapter fourteen. The perseverance and love from Okonkwo's second wife Ekwefi towards Ezinma, despite her many miscarriages, is seen as a tribute to Igbo womanhood, which is typically defined by motherhood. Okonkwo's defeat is seen by Mezu and literature scholar Nahem Yousaf as a vindication of the need for a balancing feminine ethos. Bestman argued that Okonkwo's failures are tied to his contempt for and fear of women and his inability to form quality personal relationships with the women in his life. Achebe expressed frustration at frequently being misunderstood on this point, saying that "I want to sort of scream that "Things Fall Apart" is on the side of women [...] And that Okonkwo is paying the penalty for his treatment of women; that all his problems, all the things he did wrong, can be seen as offenses against the feminine." On this, Bestman states that Okonkwo's violent and vehement anti-women position is the exception, not the norm, within his community of Umuofia and the wider Igbo society.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe is regarded as the most dominant and influential writer of modern African literature, and has been called the "father of African literature", the "founding father of African literature", and the "'father of the African novel in English". Achebe rejected such descriptions. "Things Fall Apart" has been described as the most important book in modern African literature and was described as his masterpiece by critic Dwight Garner. Selling over 20 million copies worldwide, it has been translated into 57 languages, making Achebe the most translated, studied, and read African author. His legacy as a writer is particularly unique in regards to its substantial impact on not only African literature, but European literature as well.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: At the ceremony for his honorary degree from the University of Kent, professor Robert Gibson said that the Nigerian writer "is now revered as Master by the younger generation of African writers and it is to him they regularly turn for counsel and inspiration." In November 2015 the theme of the Pan African Writers' Association's 22nd International African Writers' Day and three-day conference was "Celebrating the Life and Works of Chinua Achebe: The Coming of Age of African Literature?" Scholar Simon Gikandi, recalling the schooling of himself and his classmates in Kenya, said "Things Fall Apart" "changed the lives of many of us".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Outside of Africa, Achebe's impact resonates strongly in literary circles. Novelist Margaret Atwood called him "a magical writer—one of the greatest of the twentieth century". Poet Maya Angelou lauded "Things Fall Apart" as a book wherein "all readers meet their brothers, sisters, parents and friends and themselves along Nigerian roads". Nobel laureate Toni Morrison noted that Achebe's work inspired her to become a writer and "sparked her love affair with African literature".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Achebe received over 30 honorary degrees from universities in Nigeria, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States, including Dartmouth College, Harvard, and Brown. Among his other honours are the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1972); the Nigerian National Order of Merit, the Order of the Federal Republic (1979); an Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1982); the St. Louis Literary Award (1999); the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2002); the Man Booker International Prize (2007); and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2010). In 1992 he became the first living writer to be represented in the Everyman's Library collection (reprints of classic literature) published by Alfred A. Knopf. He was appointed Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Population Fund in 1999.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Although he accepted numerous awards from the Nigerian government, Achebe refused the Nigerian Commander of the Federal Republic in 2004. Citing his frustration with the political environment, he explained:


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan claimed that Achebe was confused by misinformation but said he still held him in high regard. Achebe was again awarded the Commander of the Federal Republic in 2011, but he declined it asserting "the reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made have not been addressed let alone solved. It is inappropriate to offer it again to me".


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Despite his global standing and international renown, Achebe never received the Nobel Prize for Literature, which some—particularly Nigerians—viewed as unjust. In 1988 Achebe was asked by a reporter for "Quality Weekly" how he felt about never winning a Nobel Prize; he replied: "My position is that the Nobel Prize is important. But it is a European prize. It's not an African prize ... Literature is not a heavyweight championship. Nigerians may think, you know, this man has been knocked out. It's nothing to do with that." Despite his own indifference, Soyinka reports that immediately after Achebe's death he received a great many letters urging him to nominate Achebe posthumously. Soyinka denied such requests, explaining that Achebe "is entitled to better than being escorted to his grave with that monotonous, hypocritical aria of deprivation's lament, orchestrated by those who, as we say in my part of the world, 'dye their mourning weeds a deeper indigo than those of the bereaved'. He deserves his peace. Me too! And right now, not posthumously."


title: Chinua Achebe

text: Bard College founded the Chinua Achebe Center in 2005, to "create dynamic projects for the most talented of a new generation of writers and artists of African origin." Bard also established a Chinua Achebe Fellowship in Global African Studies. Achebe was created the "Ugonabo" of Ogidi, a Nigerian chieftain, by the people of his ancestral hometown in 2013. In Igbo culture, taking a title such as this is the highest honor a man may receive. On Achebe's 86th birthday in 2016, young writers in Anambra State began the Chinua Achebe Literary Festival. In December 2019, a memorial bust commemorating Achebe and the opening of the Chinua Achebe Literary Court was unveiled at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Achebe was honored as "Grand Prix de la Mémoire" (Grand Prize for Memory) of the 2019 edition of the Grand Prix of Literary Associations prize.


title: Chinua Achebe

text: " Notes that "Achebe is discussed in nearly every book and survey article written on African literature in English". See , and for extensive bibliographies"


title: Deal with the Devil

text: A deal with the Devil (also called a Faustian bargain or Mephistophelian bargain) is a cultural motif exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being elemental to many Christian traditions. According to traditional Christian belief about witchcraft, the pact is between a person and the Devil or another demon, trading a soul for diabolical favours, which vary by the tale, but tend to include youth, knowledge, wealth, fame and power.


title: Deal with the Devil

text: It was also believed that some people made this type of pact just as a sign of recognising the minion as their master, in exchange for nothing. The bargain is a dangerous one, as the price of the Fiend's service is the wagerer's soul. The tale may have a moralising end, with eternal damnation for the foolhardy venturer. Conversely, it may have a comic twist, in which a wily peasant outwits the devil, characteristically on a technical point. The person making the pact sometimes tries to outwit the devil, but loses in the end (e.g., man sells his soul for eternal life because he will never die to pay his end of the bargain. Immune to the death penalty, he commits murder, but is sentenced to life in prison).


title: Deal with the Devil

text: A number of famous works refer to pacts with the devil, from the numerous European Devil's Bridges to the violin virtuosity of Giuseppe Tartini and Niccolò Paganini to the "crossroad" myth associated with Robert Johnson.


title: Deal with the Devil

text: In Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, "Bargain with the devil" constitutes motif number M210 and "Man sells soul to devil" motif number M211.


title: Deal with the Devil

text: It is usually thought that individuals who make a pact also promise to demons that they will kill children or consecrate them to the devil at the moment of birth (many midwives were accused of this, due to the number of children who died at birth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance), take part in Witches' Sabbaths, have sexual relations with demons, and sometimes engender children from a succubus, or an incubus in the case of women.