66.5.

Peculiar people peculiar to a peculiar time. Who are we today? Which peculiarities are we letting slip by unhindered? While we sleep the people we elect to govern us not only plot to work our families to the bone but also consider what type of fertiliser our remains will make. The world has not changed much. Our masters, g_ds and own stupidities still have us by the balls. I don’t go for hoping or praying but I do wish that the future holds a looser grip. We all deserve at least the opportunity to create a less predictable existence. Or do we?                                                                        (2009)

37.3.

Achebe writes his novels in English because written Standard Igbo was created by combining various dialects, creating a stilted written form. In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said, "the novel form seems to go with the English language. There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheritance, which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He had this notion that the Igbo language— which had very many different dialects—should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. But the standard version cannot sing. There's nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It's heavy. It's wooden. It doesn't go anywhere." Wiki