“You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried—children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not heard the song they sing when a woman dies? 'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' I have no more to say to you.”
More from Chinua Achebe
“Even when there was strong disagreement, one had to remember to be discordant with…”
“Whether the rendezvous of separate histories will take place in a grand, harmonious…”
“In the end millions (some state upward of three million, mostly children) had died, mainly…”
“Our humanity is contingent on the humanity of our fellows. No person or group can be human…”