I. N. C. Aniebo

Ifeanyichukwu Ndubuisi Chikezie Aniebo, commonly known as I. N. C. Aniebo (born 31 January 1939), is a Nigerian novelist and short story writer, who has been called "the master craftsman of the Nigerian short story.

Quotes

• Yes, of course, [African Literature exists]. There has been a lot of controversy about it. But you see, it’s like somebody looking at the sun and asking, “Do you believe in the sun?” But the sun is there. You are an African, I’m an African, okay. There is an African thought system. So, naturally there must be an African literature. It’s automatic
• I mean, look at all the confusion, when you know that there are about two hundred and fifty different (groups of) people in this place. And they wish to bring the same confusion in African Literature. But there is African Literature. I believe in it, and to me, African Literature is that literature that contains African thought system and African life, period. Whether it is by a Mungoro or a Russian or a Jew, it’s relevant, because for the Jew to be able to write African literature, he must have lived in Africa before he can do it. Otherwise, he would be writing Jewish literature about Africa

• when you think, do you think in Igbo or in English?” And sometimes, they can’t even tell me … they say, “well, well, you know, sometimes I think in Igbo.” For me, most of the time, I think in English. I have to consciously change it to think in Igbo
• If they say I’m not an African, fine; then your definition is right, but I feel that with time, many more African languages will be used in creative writing, and when that happens, I also think that those Africans — this is in the future — will look for the works that were written in either English or French or Portuguese and translate them into the required language
• Let’s not bother ourselves; create whatever you can in whatever language as long as you will invest it with your sensibilities and your African feelings; because there is a way we look at the world which nobody else does and I can tell you why: the fact that every morning you wake up and you look up and see the sun shinning makes your life go in a particular way from the person who will wake up and for six months he will not see the sun
• Because that kind of person, if you bring him out where the sun shines everyday, he will go mad out of joy. You know, he might remove all his clothes and say he’s sunning himself. You see them lying on the beaches and so on. Have you seen a black man who has stayed in the sun all these years, going out there to strip himself and lie under the sun and saying, “I’m sunning myself?” When you are even running away from the sun? So, your life-style is different. That’s what we call ‘African'
• But take a small baby, an African child, put him in the forest, he won’t make any noise. He will even be going round looking for things to play with. Whatever, he sees, be it a little worm, he will ask, “what is this?” He might even pick it up. Whereas a white man will run off and exclaim, “No! There are too many things crawling in this place!” So, it’s all a matter of life-style
• The problem, I think, with our critics at the moment is that they are all afraid. They are afraid of putting their foot in the wrong place

• So, my thinking is that, unfortunately, our critics of African Literature have not reached that position that the critics of other world literatures have reached, particularly American, British, French and German
• And I say this with unhappiness because the critic is supposed to be the midwife to the writer. The writer is pregnant, it is this midwife that will help the writer deliver. Without the midwife there might be either obstructions or the baby might die or it could be still-born, or even suffer from other kinds of complications
• Critics help writers to produce better materials in other places. And this is what the Nigerian or African critics should do for creative writers
  • There Is African Literature…I Believe In It – Says I.N.C. Aniebo,Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye,September 5, 2006