Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Achebe, Chinua (Vol. 26) - The New York Times Book Review

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"Girls at War" is ironic, witty and complex in its consideration of various ways in which the old Africa interacts with the new.

In "Dead Man's Path," one of the best and most representative of the stories, an ambitious and "modern" young teacher is assigned to take over the school in a provincial village. A path runs through the school grounds, connecting the village with the ancestral graveyard; the teacher considers it an eyesore, and closes it off. "Look here, my son," he is told by the village priest, "this path was here before you were born and before your father was born. The whole life of this village depends on it…." The teacher scoffs ("The whole purpose of our school … is to eradicate just such beliefs as that"), but shortly thereafter a young woman dies in childbirth; the villagers, fearful that their ancestors have been insulted, reopen the path by destroying the school grounds.

The story is very...

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1. Introduction
2. The Times Literary Supplement
3. Phoebe-Lou Adams
4. John Coleman
5. Robert C. Healey
6. Time
7. Phoebe-Lou Adams
8. Ronald Christ
9. Charles Miller
10. ROBERT McDOWELL
11. Kate Turkington
12. Adrian A. Roscoe
13. Bruce King
14. John Povey
15. The New Yorker
16. Ifeanyi A. Menkiti
17. The New York Times Book Review
18. Joseph Bruchac
19. Francis M. Sibley
20. G. D. Killam
21. Jonathan Peters
22. Bruce King
23. Copyright

1. Chinua Achebe