Response to "Chinua Achebe on How Storytelling Helps Us Survive History’s Rough Patches"

While over twenty years old, Chinua Achebe’s ideas in his interview with Bill Moyers seem more relevant than ever. Achebe remarks, “There is no one way to anything.” In a country where fake new has quickly become an epidemic, and ignorance and a lack of empathy the newest intellectual fashion, Achebe makes a point that too few people are aware of: in our society we become so closed off in our own life bubbles that we forget that someone else is experiencing our world through a very different lens. Literature is a way to give readers a way to gain a different perspective of society, but only when authors are willing to pen the story of an “unconventional” (or rather not a white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied, and upper-middle class) character. Achebe then goes on to say that it is vital to be political in writing. As I have continued my academic schooling, it has become increasingly clear that history books tell only one story that are easily forgotten. Books are a way to ensure that the untold stories, usually not romantic or pretty, are there to remind and warn new generations of the past and prevent history from repeating itself over and over again. It takes courage for writers to a chance and create an unsettling piece. I firmly believe that literature is meant to leave readers questioning not only the world around them, but also themselves and their own beliefs. In the interview, Achebe also offers a glimmer of hope. He reminds readers that by exploring only a small period of history, the bad seems overpowering, but viewed in the larger context of human history it is simply a “bad-patch.” As someone who has sometimes viewed the last year as the start of a seemingly terminal illness for the United States, Achebe has provided me with a reason to be optimistic for the future. It is easy to become caught up in the terrible, that we forget that our mothers, fathers, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on have endured so much worse and have come out the other side. Our society has a huge responsibility to ourselves and each other to continue to work for what is right, and literature is a key component in this fight.