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.
"Analyzes fictional and historical cartographies of Africa in a full range of Achebe's literary works--novels including Things Fall Apart, but also short stories, poems, and essays--to offer a critical representation of Africa's present and future. The author focuses on the historical valuation of these texts as important contributions to political events in Nigeria and, by extension, Africa. Dwelling on the Nigerian political context upon which many, if not all, of the writer's narratives lie, this book examines methodologies of narration and ideologies that allow his works to resonate with the imagination of Africa"--
