From Nigeria-Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria's corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honours, never fearing to criticise those he felt ruined his country.
On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country's elite came to praise him.
Hundreds attended Achebe's funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer's books.
The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the "eagle atop the Iroko tree" in his native Igbo language.
It was a fitting tribute to the respect Achebe carried among the people here and for many others around the world who knew him through his books, which many say is the first African voice heard in modern literature.
"Chinua Achebe gave Africa its confidence," said Emeka Anyaoku, an Igbo elder.
Achebe rose to acclaim with the publication of his 1958 classic novel "Things Fall Apart," a parable for the collapse of traditional society in Africa on the arrival of colonialists.
More here-
http://www.enca.com/africa/chinua-achebe-honoured-nigeria-funeral
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