Chinua Achebe

In an essay about the joys of “recognitions” in the recent collection The Education of a British-Protected Child, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe details an anecdote from a bookseller’s convention, circa 1989. Achebe writes: “I had been invited by my American publishers to a bookseller’s dinner in Washington, D.C. The cab ride was a capsule story of its own.”

The driver turned out to be a Nigerian. He looked over his shoulder as I boarded his vehicle and called my name in the form of a question. I nodded in answer and he became so excited that he talked all the way to our destination. The other two passengers in the cab, another writer and an editor from our publishing house, just sat and watched this moving drama, which I, being partly responsible for it, tried at intervals and with little success to halt or divert. At the end of the journey, the editor held out a twenty-dollar bill to the driver. He shook his head and said that Chinua Achebe cannot pay to ride in his cab. I told him I was not paying, that my publisher way paying, and that my publisher was very rich. He still shook his head and said that Chinua Achebe’s friends cannot pay in his cab!