1959 Life Magazine Photographs of Chinua Achebe Reveal Complex Colonial Context

In 1959, a photographer visited Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe's small flat to create images for Life magazine, capturing eight photographs that show the author at work on his second novel. Four images depict Achebe bent over his desk while four others show him facing the viewer directly. The desk contained two editions of his first novel and what appears to be an Oxford English Dictionary, with one photograph revealing his handwriting on a foolscap sheet. Swedish scholar Raoul J. Granqvist analyzed these images in 2013, noting they were part of a series framed by racist assumptions. The photographer had first visited Congo to illustrate passages from books by white writers about Africa, including Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899). Achebe would later publish a reasoned rebuttal to Conrad's work in 1975. Despite the problematic context, Achebe appears welcoming in the photographs, with kind and curious eyes. His first novel had achieved unexpected success and would eventually earn him recognition as the father of modern African literature. At the time of the photographs, Achebe was struggling with his second book, writing only about 100 words per hour during three-hour work sessions. He was attempting to master narrative techniques while telling stories of his people without didacticism, drawing inspiration from oral traditions. The photographs survive as documentation of this creative struggle within a colonial framework.