Yes, he's an old man in a wheelchair these days, but back then? Total badass*. That's what I want my author photo to look like. And yes, I admit it: it's things like having an author photo that made my child brain want to be a writer when I grew up. My wish was to join that group of people who had made me happiest, who had brought the most joy and thirst for knowledge and adventure into my life: novelists. It's not just the photos, of course; the books themselves are the magic and the fact that there are people who write them dawned upon me only later. But when I figured out what an author was, I wanted to be one.
* "Things Fall Apart" is still the most widely-read novel by an African author, so Professor Achebe, sitting in his wheelchair, remains a total badass.
Agreed!
ReplyDelete(I read it 11 years ago... permission to use slanty faced emoticon? No? Okay.)
But you don't smoke. Will your author photo have you holding onto an unlit cigar per chance?
ReplyDeleteThe smile, the shades...and yes, that cigarette. 1950s cool: the original cool. When we long for it, we have to remember how that cigarette was stinking up the room.
ReplyDeleteNow that is an awesome author photo.
ReplyDeleteI hate it when authors wear blazers and appear morose on their author photos (talking to you J. Franzen).
Have you read any of the new nigerian writers? Chimamandia Adichie, Chris Abani etc?
Anne, I think my author photo will have me wearing sunglasses and holding a lit cigarette. And maybe a cocktail, too. Or I could grow a big, bushy Hemingway beard and chomp on a cigar.
ReplyDeleteI read Things Fall Apart for university class, and I loved it. It remains one of my favourite books to this day.
ReplyDeleteMayowa, I don't know Chimamandia Adichie, Chris Abani or any of the current crop of Nigerian writers. But I'll go looking for them now. Thanks. There are just too many good books out there for any one man to read them all. Darn it.
ReplyDeleteI think Things Fall Apart is easily one of my favorite novels that I read in college. Showing the strong man's downfall is hard to do and do it well, but Achebe whacked it clear out of the park with that one.
ReplyDeleteAlso: I kept my college physics textbook partly because the author photo has the writer juggling torches. Any physics teacher who does that deserves to be labeled awesome.
Gotta love a badass author photograph. I, too, recall reading Things Fall Apart in high school, and I'm very glad I did.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I don't think my author photo will be quite so badass. Unless they let me take a pic with my tattoos showing. Then it might be badassish.... Nah. I'm just not a badass. I'm a tiny bit sad about that.
Where's my vodka?
When I started my blog Pilgrim Soul, I had the audacity in my first post to compare one of my novels to Things Fall Apart. TFA still ranks as one of my favorite novels, which I read and reread, always gaining fresh appreciation for its quiet genius. You might want to check out Achebe’s latest book, The Education of a British-Protected Child; the title of this collection of essays, intentionally ironic. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is not at the same level of genius. It remains nonetheless a decent read, especially since as a tale of the Biafran War it serves as a fictional bookend to the history of the Ibo people first introduced in literary form to the Western world in TFA.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading this when I was a teenager at secondary (high) school. The story has stayed with me all these years, especially the ending.
ReplyDeleteBut I could never remember the author.
"My wish was to join that group of people who had made me happiest, . . ." --very well said. I think that says it quite well for a lot of us.
ReplyDeleteI read Things Fall Apart in High school. I didn't like it at the time but it stuck with me, and remembering things about it I think I would like it now.
@scottg.fbailey,
ReplyDeleteI hear ya, too many books, too little time.
@Judith Mercado,
You make an excellent point, Chimamandia Adichie is in many ways a literary descendant of Chinua Achebe.
My only quarrel with TFA and most of the works from that first generation of Nigerian Writers is that they are too preoccupied with refuting/counteracting/exploring colonial ideas. While the current generation is also preoccupied with refuting some western ideas of Nigeria, it explores a much much wider variety of themes and ideas.
Mayowa, I think that there is a real difference between the literatures of people who have been colonized and the literatures of people who do the colonizing. The literature of England, for example, does not spend a lot of time defending/contrasting English culture with other cultures, as the English already have a national identity. There is a lot of writing coming out of India, for example, that reads as political/sociological essay as much as it reads as story, if you know what I mean. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Dostoyevski and Kafka made careers writing about "the other" and the idea of alienation. And stuff. I'm too tired to say anything really intelligent this morning.
ReplyDelete@scottgfbailey,
ReplyDeleteYou're exactly right. I am no more free of that phenomenon than Chinua Achebe is (my first book follows in this tradition).
There is something about this current generation that I love though (besides youthful narcissism hehe) and that is that we address these cultural/sociological events with a tad more nuance.
I mean absolutely no disrespect to the old guard when i say that. We young'ns could not express the all wide wonder of Nigeria without their efforts.
That's cool, Mr. Bailey. I think you should take a badass photo of yourself. Or have someone take it for you. Persuade Mighty Reader to give you badass inspiration. Or you could take a badass couple photo!
ReplyDeleteCandid looking shots are definitely cooler than stiff, awkwardly posed shots. Who says authors can't be glamorous? :)
ReplyDeleteHey, if I ever make it up there to Seattle I'll take your author photo if you'd let me. I could make you totally badass. ;)
ReplyDeleteOkay. I'm going to have to read Things Fall Apart. How did I never get assigned that book? Great photo. I gotta say I love author photos and candids in general.
ReplyDelete