Chinua Achebe Symposium: A Pre-Festival Event for the 2026 Things Fall Apart Festival

In Chinua Achebe’s internationally influential novel, “Things Fall Apart”, names such as Onwumbiko (Death, I implore you), Ozoemena (May it not happen again), Onwuma (Death may please himself), speak to the Igbo cosmology of recurrence or reincarnation, in particular, spirit children or Ogbanje, who are destined to die prematurely and come back to the same mother through rebirth. These names could potentially address different but related situations, but they expose how an event, a mother’s despair or a society’s loss can be captured in a single word.

Through general conversation, lecture and panel discussion, we approach “names” and “naming” from various vantage points. Moving beyond character names, we ask: Why do names and the art of naming wheel such influential power, determine one’s or a people’s destiny and archive undocumented cultural memories? Who has the power and right to name? How can different cultural names for a shared concept coexist and be used interchangeably in a world that prioritizes standardization?