Author Chinua Achebe wrote the 1958 classic 'Things Fall Apart' an Africans view of Africans in light of the European/Missionary invasion.
'The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stand. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife o the things that held us together and we have fallen apart'.
He was said to write in a style similar to Hemingway, the opening to 'Things Fall apart' begins- 'Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond'. He wrote in English, for which he was often criticized but he wanted a broader audience to know the true Africa and to expel myths that became popular about Africa from works such as 'Heart Of Darkness'.
Nelson Mandela praised Achebe for bringing 'Africa to the world'. Mr. Achebe's writing was propelled by a class assignment he received while in college which was the book 'Mister Johnson' which portrayed Africa as a 'land of grinning, shrieking savages'.
Achebe pondered why his parents had converted to christianity and why he did not identify himself as African and the changes European life and brought to Africa. In his last work 'There Was A country' about Biafra's unsuccessful effort to become independent from the corruption in Nigeria he observed- 'the little people of the world are ever expendable'.
In his last lecture in the heart of his homeland, Igbo, he urged Africans to celebrate their culture and their lives and of the dangers they now faced- his generation had brought them freedom 'But we don't seem to have a receipt'. He was 82