From The Guardian:
As soon as I heard about Chinua Achebe's rejection of the label “father of modern African literature“, I did two Google searches. One, was for “father of modern European literature” for, surely, if modern African literature has a father, European literature could not possibly be a bastard. The second, was for “father of primitive African literature”, since such a competent fatherless father (which in this case would be Achebe) would be something worth documenting. I hate to disappoint eager readers, but both searches drew a blank.
I thoroughly agree with Achebe's rejection of the label, because, as he has said, “there were many of us – many, many of us”.
More here.
