REMEMBERING CHINUA ACHEBE BY BENEDICTO WOKOMAATANI MALUNGA
GUEST WRITER-BENEDICTO WOKOMAATANI MALUNGA (Malawian author, Poet and Lecturer) A gentle Igbo giant Bedecked with impeccable Literary credentials and accolades When you humbly walked this earth You rest quietly In the belly of Africa You loved and defended When Joseph Conrad And Joyce Cary Dismembered its personality With intellectual jaundice Born of racial bias Stinking with distortions Springing from cultural And historical ignorance Only bigots weave into Their stories of denigration Tales calculated at putting down People whose past was no nightmare Whose history was no night of darkness To be dreaded by its modern children To be despised by the present generation Chinua Achebe the father of African literature You are to be saluted in death Just as you were praised in life For retrieving our lost glory Through Things Fall Apart The reservoir of culture and history We can happily cherish as our own Enriched by recreation provided By a memorable wrestling match Pairing Amalinze t