Saturday, January 21, 2017

Chinua Achebe on Storytelling

 "It is the storyteller, in fact, who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that survivors must have — otherwise surviving would have no meaning… "

In this article, Achebe in no way underrates the storyteller, and after reading a compilation of his quotes, I have to agree with him. While most of the time it is the "drummer" or the "warrior" who receives all the fame from the press when history has been made, we often forget that without the duties of the press to tell the stories of our warriors, the mark in history might as well not have been made. Since we would never learn from our mistakes, the same issue would reoccur in years to come. Even with our refined storytelling today, we find that our history repeats itself. A large part of history is made by doing. However, we cannot forget to emphasize the importance of recounting events, sharing them in an understandable platform, and analyzing the activities of the warrior or drummer, because, "otherwise surviving would have no meaning..."

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