scholarly journals CURREY (James), Quand l’Afrique réplique. La collection « African Writers » et l’essor de la littérature africaine. Mot de présentation de Chinua Achebe. Traduit de l’anglais par Sophie Amar. Paris : L’Harmattan, coll. L’Afrique au coeur des lettres, 2011, 448 p., ill. phot. NB – ISBN 978-2-296-54688-2

2011 ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Dominique Ranaivoson
Keyword(s):  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
African Writers

Conrad, Joseph (1857–1924)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Peters
Keyword(s):  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Graham Greene ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Heart Of Darkness ◽  
British Novelists ◽  
African Writers ◽  
Post War ◽  
Secret Agent ◽  
First World

Joseph Conrad was one of the foremost British novelists of the modernist period. Many of the narrative innovations he developed appeared a decade or more before similar technical experimentation became the norm among modernist writers. Furthermore, his radical skepticism was a stark contrast to the Edwardian optimism evident in the years prior to the First World War and anticipates the disillusionment so many modernist writers felt during the post-war era. Best known for ‘Heart of Darkness’, Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, ‘The Secret Sharer’, and Under Western Eyes, Conrad influenced numerous writers who followed him, such as William Faulkner, Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and an entire generation of African writers who often found themselves in dialogue with Conrad {-} for example, Chinua Achebe and J. M. Coetzee.

scholarly journals Literature as a Medium for Social and Political Activism: The Case of Mashingaidze Gomo’s A Fine Madness

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodwell Makombe
Keyword(s):  
Political Activism ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
African Context ◽  
African Writers

Abstract:Over the years, literary scholars have engaged in heated debates on the role literary artists should play in society. In the African context, this debate has been championed by scholars such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, and Okot p’ Bitek, among others. The central bone of contention has always been the question of self-narration. How should African writers narrate the African story (-ies) against the backdrop of slavery, colonialism, and neoliberal imperialism? In the context of these debates, this article seeks to read A Fine Madness by the Zimbabwean writer Mashingaidze Gomo (2010) as a socially and politically engaged text.

scholarly journals Literatura, Linguagem e Descolonização em Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Quênia) e Chinua Achebe (Nigéria)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Bruno Ribeiro Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
African Languages ◽  
African People ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Writers ◽  
The Many

A história de literatura africana contemporânea está repleta de debates que tratam de sua utilidade frente aos povos de África e a natureza dessa literatura. Através das ideias de dois escritores africanos, Chinua Achebe e Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, este artigo revisita a história das ideias desses autores em respeito à literatura africana e sua linguagem de escrita. Tratamos de perceber como dois autores da mesma geração, porém de locais diferentes, Nigéria e Quênia, respectivamente, pensaram a produção literária e sua função em África no período pós-colonial.Palavras-chave: Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938-), Literatura Africana, Línguas Africanas AbstractThe history of African contemporary literature is full of debates that deal with its utility to the many African people and the nature of this literature. Through the ideas of two African writers, Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, we revisit the history of the ideas of these authors in relation to African literature and the language in which this literature is written. We try to perceive how authors from the same generation, but from different locals, Nigeria and Kenya, respectively, thought their literary production and its function in Africa in the post-colonial period.Keywords: Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938-), African Literatures, African Languages

scholarly journals The True Face of Pre-Colonial Africa in “Things Fall Apart”

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (30) ◽  
pp. 96-104
Author(s):  
Ecevit Bekler
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Western World ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Important Place ◽  
History Of ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
Authentic Environment ◽  
African Writers ◽  
The One

The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known to be one of the most influential African writers and holds an important place in postcolonial studies. His main aim was to reconstructthe wrongly established beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of the Western world regarding Africa. To realize his aim, he made careful selections in his choice of language, which contributed greatly to sharing his observations, ideas, and beliefs with the rest of the world. He wrote his novels in English, believing that doing so would be more powerful in conveying the true face of pre-colonial Africa, rather than in Nigerian, which could not be as effective as the language of the colonizers. Achebe’s complaint was that the history of Africa had mainly been written by white men who did not belong to his continent and who would not judge life there fairly. With his novels, he changed the prejudices of those who had never been to Africa, and he managed to convert the negative ideas and feelings caused by the portrayal of his continent to positive ones. Things Fall Apart is a novel whose mission is to portray Africa in a very realistic and authentic environment, contrary to the one-sided point of view of the colonizers. The novel presents us, in very authentic language, with many details about the customs, rituals, daily life practices, ceremonies, beliefs, and even jokes of the African Igbos. Chinua Achebe thus realizes his aim in revealing that African tribes, although regarded as having a primitive life and being very far from civilization, in fact had their own life with traditions and a culture specific to themselves.

García Márquez in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-231
Author(s):  
Regina Janes
Keyword(s):  
African Diaspora ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Language Politics ◽  
Mongo Beti ◽  
Camara Laye ◽  
Sony Labou Tansi ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
African Writers ◽  
Ben Okri

The title of this article is multidimensional. How was García Márquez’s writing received and distributed in Africa? Beyond Africa’s colonial languages—Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, and Arabic—into what continental languages was it translated (Swahili, Berber, Chichewa, Malagasy, Sotho, Amharic, Swazi, Comorian, Somali, Oromo, Manding?) and distributed, in what numbers, by what networks, and to which cities of Africa’s forty-eight sub-Saharan nations with their 750 to 3,000 languages? García Márquez published a few articles about Africa and traveled to Africa, reporting, speaking, and conferring. Thereafter the African diaspora in the Caribbean figured more prominently in his work. Finally, and most importantly, the success of One Hundred Years of Solitude inspired and validated writers in possession of rich regional folklore crossed by the stresses of modernization, postcolonialism, and language politics. African writers had already novelized their folklore (e.g., Nigeria’s Amos Tutuola and Guinea’s Camara Laye), experimented intertextually and historically (e.g., Mali’s Yambo Ouloguem), and ironized their history (e.g., Cameroon’s Mongo Beti and Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe). The term that was originally interchangeable with “magic realism,” “the marvelous American real,” had been coined to describe Haiti, that is, the African diaspora. Such writers as Sierra Leone’s Syl Cheney-Coker, Nigeria’s Ben Okri and Chika Unigwe, Ghana’s Kojo Laing, Congo’s Sony Labou Tansi, Uganda’s Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, and Mozambique’s Mia Couto found their realities newly believable—and readable. As the British-Ghanaian Nii Parkes observed, “One Hundred Years of Solitude taught the West how to read a reality alternative to their own.”

scholarly journals Literary cum Philoso-Religious Periscope on the Nature of Man

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Ndubuisi H. Onyemelukwe ◽  
Chidiebere E. Irolewe ◽  
Catherine O. Ogbechie ◽  
Abosede O. Ogunnaike
Keyword(s):  
Positive Response ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
People Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Religious Sects ◽  
African Writers ◽  
Life On Earth

The self-evident truth that man is a mystery to himself generates justifiable intellectual curiosity. Giving expression to such curiosity would help to further unravel the mysterious nature of man by means of philoso-religious investigations into the personality of some purposively selected major characters in the literary works of prominent African and non-African writers. Consequently, this study undertakes to investigate some creative works of world-acclaimed fame. Purposively selected for the study in this regard include Profs. Chinua Achebe and Isidore Okpewho’s fictions, Prof. Ola Rotimi’s The gods Are not to Blame, George Orwell’s narratives, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Micere Githae Mugo’s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, Marie Correli’s The Sorrows of Satan and Cheik Hamidou Kane’s The Ambiguous Adventure. These classics are selected, because besides being philoso-religiously oriented, their geographical settings cut across the world to validate the findings of the study. The objective of the investigation focused on the selected works is to help man understand himself now more than previously ever, especially in relation to the will of God, his creator. This objective is pursuant to the expectation that achieving it would significantly improve the quality of life on earth, and by extension, man’s eternal destiny. The theoretical premise which drives the investigation of man and his nature in the novels used for the study conceptualises man in relation to ethics and the metaphysical world. It, therefore, provides appreciable insights into man’s identity profile which distinguishes between the created man as an enemy of God and the redeemed man as a friend of God. Relying on some scientific basis, the theoretical framework establishes that God is an undeniable reality, concluding, therefore, that it translates to stark ignorance or gross senselessness not to know Him. The analysis done as part of the study confirms its hypothesis, namely, that literature is a mirror of life which is largely a reflection of the natures of the created man rather than those of the redeemed man. The confirmation of this hypothesis proves that humanity is farther away from God than she is close to Him. In other words, the final destiny of mankind, hereafter, is largely threatened. The pragmatics of this worrisome major finding is that the near-countable redeemed people of God in this generation, especially the clergy, should and must commit themselves to intensified effective creative evangelisation to forestall evil from overtaking the world. Positive response to this clarion call by the redeemed people of God found in all authentic religious sects is imperative, else, evil will eventually overtake the world and provoke God’s devastating wrath on humanity.

scholarly journals Cultural Diversity, Ethnocentrism and Terrorism in Mukoma WA Ngugi’s Black Star Nairobi (2013)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-373
Author(s):  
Babacar Diakhaté
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Illegal Immigration ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Diversity Issues ◽  
African Writers

This article brings to light the obstacles that impede countries like Kenya to develop. In Black Star Nairobi, Mukoma WA Ngugi addresses cultural diversity issues and ethnic crisis.  Like other African writers such as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi WA Thiong’o, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mukoma WA Ngugi displays to what extent Kenyans are tied to their cultures, traditions and ethnics. He demonstrates how ethnocentrism can have an impact on the socio-political activities of his people. He also pinpoints the drawbacks engendered by ethnocentrism like radicalization, terrorism and illegal immigration.

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