The Student for whom Chinua Achebe Wrote a Letter

“I remember the day Ezenwa’s body was brought to this university’s auditorium, the then Professor Ilochi Okafor pointedly told me that Ezenwa had left a very big shoe, that I need to wake up and meet up with that size. I told myself that Ezenwa wore

Chinua Achebe in 2008 at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he was a professor at the time.CreditCreditCraig Ruttle/Associated Press

In 1983, the Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, received a peculiarly unusual letter. One of his former students at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, had written to him, “asking timidly for permission to w…