Achebe, Chinua (Vol. 3) | Achebe, Chinua 1930–
Achebe, Chinua 1930–
Achebe, a prize-winning Nigerian novelist, is best known for Things Fall Apart. His essentially political novels evoke traditional African culture in taut, balanced English prose. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
Achebe is critical of the Europeanizing of Africa, and of missionaries who fail to leaven their teachings with an understanding of Africanism.
Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart (London, 1958), derives its title from Yeats's poem, "The Second Coming," and conveys the dilemma of a man—an artist by virtue of his use of tradition as a fixed way of life—in conflict with the change that is revising his society. The action is placed in the Ibo village of Umuofia after the arrival of the white man at the beginning of the twentieth century. Written in three parts, the novel creates an idyllic picture of pre-Christian tribal life….
[This] novel is remarkable for...
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