Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #424969 in Books
• Published on: 1990-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
"A brilliant collection... [Achebe's] thoughts always pack a provacative wallop...Mr. Achebe aims to nudge readers to think past their stubborn preconceptions, and he succeeds marvelously."
--"New York Times Book Review"
"We are indebted to Achebe for reminding us that art has social and moral dimensions--a truth often obscured by the nihilism fashionable in the West."
--"Chicago Tribune"
"Western writers could learn much from these African visions, not because they radiate universal truths in the way Europe has seen itself doing, but precisely because they are so divergent from, so seemingly irrelevant to our head-down anxieties...Its truth lies in its diversity."
--"New Statesman and Society"
"These essays are funny, lucid, intelligent, and formed by a historical experience that is still too little understood in the United States. . . [Achebe is] a powerful voice for cultural decolonization."
--"The Village Voice"

Synopsis
One of Africa's most renowned novelists offers his thoughts on literature and politics in essays ranging from a highly unorthodox analysis of Joseph Conrad to a tribute to James Baldwin.

Customer Reviews

Achebe is a master of thought
I read this as part of my required summer reading for my AP English class, and I have only previously encountered Achebe's work in Things Fall Apart. This collection of essays is often thought-provoking, quite debatable, and never dull. In his opening essay on racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it will certainly be more interesting if you have read the novel before reading Achebe's comments. Among his other essays, he reflects on the tremendous and underrated value of literature, while also fleshing out details of his Ibo ancestry. The whole of the collection is far greater than the sum of its parts.