Chinua Achebe talks with Ed Pilkington “about inventing a new language, his years in exile from his beloved Nigeria – and why he changed his name from Albert.”
“Someone asked him recently, he says, to write about his favourite place. It got him thinking about why he loves Ogidi so much when it has no great mountain or cathedral and even the River Niger is miles away. So what is it that explains this deep longing?
His voice rallies just a little as he replies: ‘I can't really explain it. But for me this place, this village, is significant. It is where I formed my identity’.” – from “A Long Way from Home,” by Ed Pilkington, The Guardian