“Do you think Okonkwo was as good a friend to him?”
“How do you mean?”
“Obierika does all this stuff for him in the story. Is he worth it? Does Okonkwo put in the same effort?”
“Damn. That’s a good question.”
Actually, it’s a brilliant question. I’m a little annoyed that it occurred to a 15-year-old before it ever entered my mind. “There’s nothing in the text to directly address this question, which itself might be the answer, but…Hmm. I don’t know.”
“Right. I’m just wondering, based on what you’ve said, who is taking care of him? Like, who is Obierika’s Obierika?”
Things like this keep me up at night…
My creative nonfiction piece “Finding Obierika” distills a significant lesson learned from a decade of teaching Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and was just published in the Fall/Winter 2026 edition of Teach. Write.