Chinua Achebe - Narrating Africa in Fictions and History

An imaginative, narratological reading of Chinua Achebe''s novels, stories, poetry, and essays through a literary and historical framework. Toyin Falola analyzes fictional and historical cartographies of Africa in Achebe''s literary works to offer a critical representation of Africa''s present and future. In particular, he focuses on the historical valuation of a full range of the writer''s works - novels including Things Fall Apart , but also short stories, poems, and essays - as important materials that have contributed to the political events in Nigeria and, by extension, Africa. The raw creativity found in Achebe''s stories and his ability to tell the Nigerian story - precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial - have endeared him to many, including readers and those critical of him and his works. Chinua Achebe: Narrating Africa in Fictions and History analyzes all of the writer''s works, dwelling on the Nigerian political context upon which many, if not all, of his narratives lie. As a result, it examines methodologies of narration and ideologies that allow his works to resonate with the imagination of Africa.>

List of contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
1. The Scholarship on Chinua Achebe
2. The Life and Times of Chinua Achebe
3. Precolonial Life and Colonialism in Things Fall Apart
4. Narrative of an Ailing Nation: No Longer at Ease
5. Cultural Conflicts and Religious Tensions: Arrow of God
6. A Foreteller: A Man of the People
7. Military Regimes and Authoritarianism: Anthills of the Savannah
8. The Sad Tale of a County at War: There Was a Country
9. Love, Innocence, and Nationhood: Chinua Achebe's Short Stories and Poems
10. The Critic: Achebe's Essays
11. Achebe and the Narration of the Nation
12. The Legacies: Narrating Africa, Probing the Present, Imagining the Future
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Toyin Falola is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He is an Extraordinary Professor of Political Science, University of Pretoria. He has received over 30 lifetime career awards and 24 honorary doctorates.

Product details

• Authors: Toyin Falola
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 03.10.2024
• EAN: 9798765118474
• ISBN: 9798765118474
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 226 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Black Literary and Cultural Expressions
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Other languages / Other literatures; Nigeria, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures, Biography: literary, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, LITERARY CRITICISM / African, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Politics, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Biography: writers, Literary studies: postcolonial literature, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / African American & Black