{"id":49042,"date":"2013-03-22T11:37:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T15:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=49042"},"modified":"2013-03-22T11:37:15","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T15:37:15","slug":"chinua-achebe-19302013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinua Achebe, 1930&ndash;2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-49043\" alt=\"achebe-clarge\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"646\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge-232x300.jpg 232w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. There are oral stories that are still there, not exactly in their full magnificence, but still strong in their differentness from written stories. Each mode has its ways and methods and rules. They can reinforce each other; this is the advantage my generation has\u2014we can bring to the written story something of that energy of the story told by word of mouth. This is really one of the contributions our literature has made to contemporary literature.\u201d \u2014Chinua Achebe, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/1720\/the-art-of-fiction-no-139-chinua-achebe\">the Art of Fiction No. 139<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. There are oral stories that are still there, not exactly in their full magnificence, but still strong in their differentness from written stories. Each mode has its ways and methods and rules. They can reinforce each other; this is the advantage my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3870,20537,9708,10438,7782,75],"class_list":["post-49042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","tag-chinua-achebe","tag-in-memoriam","tag-quote-unquote-2","tag-storytelling","tag-the-art-of-fiction","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chinua Achebe, 1930&ndash;2013 by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 22, 2013 \u2013 \u201cWe live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. There are oral stories that are still there, not exactly in their full magnificence, but\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chinua Achebe, 1930&ndash;2013 by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 22, 2013 \u2013 \u201cWe live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. There are oral stories that are still there, not exactly in their full magnificence, but\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-22T15:37:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"646\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Chinua Achebe, 1930&ndash;2013\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-22T15:37:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/\"},\"wordCount\":101,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Chinua Achebe\",\"In Memoriam\",\"quote unquote\",\"storytelling\",\"the art of fiction\",\"writing\"],\"articleSection\":[\"In Memoriam\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/\",\"name\":\"Chinua Achebe, 1930&ndash;2013 by Sadie Stein\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/chinua-achebe-19302013\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/achebe-clarge.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-22T15:37:15+00:00\",\"description\":\"March 22, 2013 \u2013 \u201cWe live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. 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