The novelist Chinua Achebe (born 1930), a fine stylish and an astute social critic, is one of the best-known African writers in the West and his novels are often assigned in university courses.
Nigerian novelist and poet, whose works explore the impact of European culture on African society. Achebe's unsentimental, often ironic books vividly convey the traditions and speech of the Ibo people. Born in Ogidi, Nigeria, Achebe was educated at the University College of Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan).
Achebe's subsequent novels No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987) are set in Africa and describe the struggles of the African people to free themselves from European political influences. During Nigeria's tumultuous political period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Achebe became politically active. Most of his literary works of this time address Nigeria's internal conflict (see Nigeria, Federal Republic of: Civil War). These books include the volumes of poetry Beware, Soul Brother (1971) and Christmas in Biafra (1973), the short-story collection Girls at War (1972), and the children's book How the Leopard Got His Claws (1972).
In 1971 Achebe helped to found the influential literary magazine Okike. His other writings include the essay collections Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975), which he later expanded under the title Hopes and Impediments (1988); and The Trouble with Nigeria (1983).
"Achebe, Chinua," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. (c) Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.
There
Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (October 11, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594204829
ISBN-13: 978-1594204821
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes a longawaited memoir
about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder
in a tragic civil war
The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war,
also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970. The conflict was infamous for
its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of
whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their
borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with
a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and
served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he
absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an
academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has
maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years,
addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the
making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful
events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on
world literature.
Achebe masterfully relates his experience, bothas he lived it and how he has
come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and
the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might
come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the
hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be
powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially
during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed
writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their
people.
Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a
distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and
reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and
reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices
of our age.
Chike
and the River
Click to order via Amazon
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Anchor; Original edition (August 9, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307473864
ISBN-13: 978-0307473868
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
The more Chike saw the ferry-boats the more he wanted to make the trip to
Asaba. But where would he get the money? He did not know. Still, he hoped.
Eleven-year-old Chike longs to cross the Niger River to the city of Asaba,
but he doesn't have the sixpence he needs to pay for the ferry ride. With
the help of his friend S.M.O.G., he embarks on a series of adventures to
help him get there. Along the way, he is exposed to a range of new
experiences that are both thrilling and terrifying, from eating his first
skewer of suya under the shade of a mango tree, to visiting the village
magician who promises to double the money in his pocket. Once he finally
makes it across the river, Chike realizes that life on the other side is far
different from his expectations, and he must find the courage within him to
make it home.
Chike and the River is a magical tale of boundaries, bravery, and growth, by
Chinua Achebe, one of the world's most beloved and admired storytellers.
 Click to order via Amazon Essay and Poems by Chinua Achebe Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated Another Africa is a book that fuses photographs, poetry, and text to create a view of present-day Africa that moves beyond the stereotypes commonly held by most westerners: an open-air ethnographic museum, a continent in constant turmoil, a vast expanse of beautiful sand dunes and tropical savannas where herds of wildlife roam. This work peels away myths to explore the complexity, diversity, and human dimensions of a place called Africa--one that celebrates the commonplace and exotic simultaneously. The photographs are highly subjective, a personal investigation that reflects the sensibilities, formal concerns, and the ongoing engagement of the photographer in this part of the world. With the brilliant Chinua Achebe -- a Nigerian--contributing his poems and an essay, the book takes on a further and critical dimension. He presents a concise view of Africa today, including the individual and political issues facing its countries. He deals with Africa on its own terms--from within, not from an outsider's perspective. |
 click to order via Amazon Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also a man who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:
And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He is fond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent from another village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young woman from Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom he has too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes him. Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber |
 click to order via Amazon Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated The story of a man whose foreign education has separated him from his
African roots and made him parts of a ruling elite whose corruption he finds
repugnant. More than thirty years after it was first written, this novel
remains a brilliant statement on the challenges still facing African
society. |
 Click to order via Amazon Format: Trade Paper Set in the Ibo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Africa's best-known writers describes the conflict between old and new in its most poignant aspect: the personal struggle between father and son. |
 Click to order via Amazon Format: Trade Paper By the renowned author of Things Fall Apart, this novel
foreshadows the Nigerian coups of 1966 and shows the color and vivacity as
well as the violence and corruption of a society making its own way between
the two worlds. |
 Click to order via Amazon Format: Trade Paper |
Paperback: 128 pages Twelve stories by the internationally renowned novelist which recreate with energy and authenticity the major social and political issues that confront contemporary Africans on a daily basis. |
Books and Date Originally Published
Girls at War
Things Fall Apart, 1958
No Longer at Ease, 1960
The Sacrificial Egg and Other Stories, 1962
Arrow of God, 1964
A Man of the People, 1966
Chike and the River, 1966
Beware, Soul-Brother, and Other Poems, 1971
How the Leopard Got His Claws (with John Iroaganachi), 1972
Girls at War, 1973
Christmas at Biafra, and Other Poems, 1973
Morning Yet on Creation Day, 1975
The Flute, 1975
The Drum, 1978
Don't Let Him Die: An Anthology of Memorial Poems for Christofer Okigbo (editor with Dubem
Okafor), 1978
Aka Weta: An Anthology of Igbo Poetry (co-editor), 1982
The Trouble With Nigeria, 1984
African Short Stories, 1984
Anthills of the Savannah, 1988
Hopes and Impediments, 1988
Related Links
LTHS & RBHS Engaged Learning Projects, Illinois. USA http://collaboratory.nunet.net/goals2000/eddy/Achebe/Resources.html
Women in Achebe's World discusses women's roles (or lack there of) in
Achebe's novels. See the following web site to learn
http://www.uga.edu/~womanist/1995/mezu.html
Chinua Achebe biography by Ezenwa-Ohaeto
The first biography of the
great Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe
"This pioneering biography draws upon a wealth of printed and oral sources to
produce a vivid record of the life and times of Africa's most influential novelist.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto is Achebe's Boswell; nothing of importance, large or small, seems to escape
him."
-- Bernth Lindfors, University of Texas
Girls
at War