Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, and Home and Exile (part 1)

While I am champing at the bit for the semester to begin, I thought that I'd add an entry on the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, his first novel Things Fall Apart, and his 2000 book, Home and Exile, a trio of essays that began as the author's lectures at Harvard.  In fact, I feel a little guilty with all the Conrad entries I've posted so far. 

The first picture above is of Achebe and from the Guardian's blogs.  The second is one of the many editions of Things Fall Apart.  It appears to be an older edition and is from a Chinese web site.  As I've done with  Heart of Darkness, I could probably devote an entire entry to covers of Things Fall Apart.  So much has changed since 1958 when that novel was first published.  In fact, Achebe's homeland, Nigeria, would still be ruled by the British for another two years. 

Also, Multiply is a good place to repost some links that I have up at WebCT.  The first is to Achebe's "An Image of Africa," an essay that began as a lecture given at the University of Massachusetts in 1975:

http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html

In this essay, the author fiercely criticizes Conrad for relying on racist stereotypes of Africa and Africans as well as working to perpetuate these stereotypes in his Heart of Darkness.  Furthermore, Achebe maintains that, for the most part, Conrad refuses to let Africans speak in his novella.  Then, he notes that when they are allowed to, their few words confirm European prejudice.

Indeed, the picture below is an 17th-century engraving of a procession through Benin City, the capital of the Edo kingdom in what is now Nigeria.

Below is a picture of a bronze bowl dating from the ninth or tenth century CE.  (The bowl is from the Igbo, another group or, as Achebe states, "nation," in Nigeria.)

British author Caryl Phillips interviewed Achebe in 2003.  Here, in this article from the Guardian, Achebe expands on his criticism of Conrad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/22/classics.chinuaachebe

More recently, Ed Pilkington interviewed Achebe.  In this article also published in the guardian, the author recalls his original plan for Things Fall Apart.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/10/chinuaachebe

Pilkington's article also gives you a better sense of Achebe's life.  For a more organized outline, see the BBC's biography:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/profile/chinua-achebe.shtml

This website's biography is more detailed and more recent:

http://chinua-achebe.com/index.htm

I know I am going to have to add another entry or two, so I will conclude with some pictures from Nigeria:

First is a picture of Achebe's birthplace, Ogidi:

Below is a picture from an Igbo woman's wedding.  The bride is wearing orange!

 

I am not sure when this picture dates from, but it is from a "virtual village" built to help American students understand Things Fall Apart a little better.

Also, if you go to Staunton, VA, you'll be able to see a replica of an Igbo village:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/05/igbo-village-re-created-for-museum/