Product Description
Recounts how the leopard got his claws and teeth and why he rules the forest with terror. ... Read more

Product Description
Early Achebe deals with the essays, stories, and groundbreaking novels Chinua Achebe published between 1951 and 1966 during the first phase of the writer s long and distinguished literary career. Lindfors, a longstanding and renowned scholar and critic of African literature, demonstrates vividly the pervasive influence the subject s early writing had not only on fellow Nigerian authors but also on teachers and critics of African literature both on the continent and abroad. The book concludes with a previously unpublished lecture by Achebe titled The Writer and the African Revolution delivered at The University of Texas at Austin in November 1969, followed by Achebe s responses to questions he was asked by students, faculty, and townspeople at the time.Bernth Lindfors the major sleuth of African literature has struck gold again. The goldmine reveals a decidedly comic Achebe in his early work, segueing to his more serious writing, the result of the tragedy of Biafra. Few writers want to see their earliest scribbling brought back into full light or photos from long ago reproduced. Credit must go to both Chinua Achebe and Bernth Lindfors for resuscitating these important materials. Charles R. Larson, Author of The Emergence of African Fiction and The Ordeal of the African WriterIf anybody else outside Africa has been helpful in making to use Chinua Achebe's words about Ulli Beier Africans to see themselves through the freshness of their own vision, it is Bernth Lindfors. With its fondness for the excavating detail, the vernacular elegance of its style, and the unremitting respect and admiration for his subject's integrity as a writer, Early Achebe both enfolds and simulates Achebe's reciprocal pedagogy in all its stylistic and global width. Raoul J. Granqvist, Professor Emeritus of English Literature, Umeå University, SwedenA coherent critical groundwork and an important contribution to African literary history, Lindfors s Early Achebe is a unique starting-point for a deeper understanding of the cultural contexts, esthetic roots, thematic commitments, and stylistic features of not only Achebe s fiction but also his poetry and essays. Chukwuma Azuonye, Professor of African Literature, University of Massachusetts, Boston As one of the pioneers of African literature criticism and editor of the monumental bibliographical series Black African Literature in English, Bernth Lindfors has made contributions to African literature that are always exciting and full of relevance. His latest book, Early Achebe, which contains Chinua Achebe's earliest writings going back to his undergraduate days at University College, Ibadan, and Lindfors's own earliest essays on Achebe, is a gift of love to students and teachers of Achebe's works, and a necessary addition to the ever-growing body of commentaries in the field of Achebe studies. ... Early Achebe is, thus, an important and opportune work; it could not have been issued a moment too soon. Emmanuel Obiechina Associate Fellow, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, and Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters ... Read more

Product Description
A children's story by Africa's best known and most widely read author whose novels, poetry, essays, lectures, etc. are considered representative of contemporary Nigerian life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

a delightful read
Being a Nigerian myself,I read this book when I was 10 years old and found that the author understood perfectly what it means to be a child and to want something that appears unattainable.In my case,it was not a deisre to cross a river but to become every character I read about in a book.Chike's river typifies all our aspirations and his adventures will help children everywhere to decide if taking that next step could lead you to an experience that you can't handle on your own.Delightful little story.

Excellent book
This is a story of an eleven year old Nigerian boy (Chike), who moved from the village of Umuofia to live with an uncle in a big Nigerian city (onitsha).

While in onitsha, Chike experienced the urban city life (quite a difference from the village he had left behind), he attended school, made friends, and became fascinated with crossing the river Niger on a ferry boat.

Chike did not have the money required to pay for the ferry boat ride, and so, he tried to raise the money in some strange ways, like going to seek the services of a money doubler, washing cars, etc. He was defrauded by the money doubler (chandus the magician), But was able to raise this money through washing cars and his dream of crossing the river Niger was finally fulfilled.

This is a childrens book, you will not be bored reading it if you are an adult, it is very explanatory, short, and easy to understand. Achebe takes you into the life and thinking of a little African kid, and what it is like to grow up young in Nigeria, you may find yourself revisiting some of the very funny chapters, excellent book.

Good book that teaches valuable lessons
This book gives an excellent account of what it's like to be a young child living in Africa.It also can help teach children about the consequences of crossing the boundries that adults give them.The book is verydescriptive and a fast read. ... Read more

Product Description
In celebration of its 20th anniversary, "Conjunctions", "arguably the most distinguished journal of prose and poetry in America" (Elle), gathers a virtual Who's Who of innovative contemporary literature. "Conjunctions:37" will feature new work by writers as diverse as Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Chinua Achebe, Rick Moody, Richard Powers, Jorie Graham, William T. Vollmann, Paul West, Carole Maso, Ann Lauterbach, and many surprise contributors. This special issue will also feature an important short story by Vladimir Nabokov, newly translated by Dimitri Nabokov for "Conjunctions", which has never before appeared in English. Joyce Carol Oates offers a first look at her haunting new novel in progress, "The Falls", and William H. Gass gives us a darkly hilarious tour de force with his novella, "Charity". The 20th-anniversary issue will surely be, as the "Village Voice" has said of "Conjunctions", "A must read" for anyone interested in contemporary fiction, poetry, and drama.

"Conjunctions" is striking...a rich collection which balances well-known writers with exciting new ones. --The New York Times Book Review "Conjunctions" offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work. --The Washington Post"

Edited by Bradford Morrow.Texts by Paul Auster, Chinua Achebe, Don DeLillo, Nomi Eve, William H. Gass, Jorie Graham, Ann Lauterbach, Harry Matthews, Carole Maso, Rick Moody, Bradford Morrow, Vladimir Nabakov, Joyce Carol Oates,William T. Vollmann and Paul West.

6 x 9 in. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wonderful collection in its own right
Conjunctions has for a long time been a source of truly new and groundbreaking writing in American Literature.The current issue not only continues this trend, but even exceeds the high water mark set by earliereditions of the journal, taking the time, as it does, to focus only onprose (saving the poetry, I understand, for the next issue).Collected inone place we have stories by some of our finest writers, set alongsideworks by newer, promising authors.From Coover's phantasmagoric andplayful "Alice in the Time of the Jabberwock" to Paul West'shaunting tale, this collection is thought-provoking and expansive. ... Read more

Product Description
Cultural Nationalism has traditionally been take as being as plain as day in Achebe's earliest fictional narratives upon which the attention of readers has obsessively been focused. but Ode Ogede calls this powerful view into question.Ogede introduces readers first to the irony of the fact that in these early works Achece depended upon satires and tragedy- conventions of narrative borrowed from Europe- for his quest to reverse Western assumptions about Africans. He then re-appraises the connection between aesthetics and ideology in Things Fall Apart, Achebe's most famous first novel, which he examines alongside Achebe's lesser known early works of fiction, concluding that we may no longer continue to take commitment for granted in Achebe's early fiction.While arguing that it is ironic that the shortcomings of these imitative texts lies in their defining sources of energy, particularly their reliance upon the poetics of Aristotelian tragedy, tracing the evolution of the entire path of Achebe's narrative allowa Ogede to champion the enduring quality of Achebe's later works and to urge that readers should get their taste of these neglected texts as well- works about the ideological and aesthetic innovations of which Ogede himself writes with enthusiasm bordering on love. This is the first book to offer a serious, balanced critical examination of Achebe's fiction. A provocative study of the rich and varied oeuvre of Africa's best known novelist, it redefines the concept of cultural nationalism to encompass issues covering political, social and other forms of behavior that shape and determing the manner in which the writer views himself and his world and it is written in a lively and lucid language that is immensely delightful to read. ... Read more

Product Description
For much of Africa the 20th century was overshadowed by the experience of colonial rule, with political independence arriving for most peoples only in the last 50 years."The Short Century" is a broad survey of cultural life in Africa from the independence movements through the post-colonial era to the end of apartheid in 1994.Expansive, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated, this book studies achievements in all areas of the performing and fine arts, photography, literature, theatre, architecture, music, and film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Vital
Big. 496 pp, over 6 pounds, something like over 500 color and black & white illustrations.

Table of Contents...

Preface
Foreword
Introduction

The Surreptitious Speech, Valentine Mudimbe
Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities, Mahmood Mamdani

ART
Modern African Art, Chika Okeke
Independence and Liberations Movements in Africa, Marilyn Martin
A Moment of Hope: Developments in Nigeria before the First Military Coup, Ulli Beier

CLOTH/POSTERS
Colonial Pretense and African Resistance, or Subversion Subverted: Commemorative Textiles in Sub-Saharan Africa, John Picton

PHOTOGRAPHY
Postcoloniality, Performance, and Photographic Portraiture, Lauri Firstenberg

ARCHITECTURE
City and Citizenships, Rory Bester
The Ambiguous Modernisms of African Cites, Gwendolyn Wright
Architecture and Nationalism in Africa, 1945-1994

MUSIC
Independence, Highlife, Liberations Wars: Lagos 1950's and 1960's, Wolfgang Bender

THEATER/LITERATURE
Theater and the Performance of the Nation in Africa, John Conteh-Morgan
The Anatomy of Resistance in South African theater, Maishe Maponya
Interview with Chinua Achebe, Obiora Udechukwu
The Weapon of Culture: Negritude Literature and the Making of Neocolonial Africa, Chinweizu

FILM
The Modernity of African Cinema, Mark Nash
African Cinema and Decolonization, Manthia Diawara

POLITICS / IDEOLOGY / ETHICS
with contributions by Kwame Nkrumah. Patrice Lumumba, Sekpou Toure, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Nelson Mandela, Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Wole Soyinka, Rajat Neogy, et al.

Pan-Africanism
Pan-Arabism
Liberation Movements
African Socialism

CULTURE
Discursive Spaces
Concepts / Debates / Contestations

MANIFESTOS AND RESOLUTIONS

APPENDIX
Chronology
Biographies
List of Works
Index ... Read more

Product Description
Chinua Achebe is Africa's most prominent writer, and Things Fall Apart (1958) is the most renowned and widely-read African novel in the global literary canon. Translated into close to sixty languages, Things Fall Apart is the novel that inaugurated the long and continuing tradition of postcolonial inquiry into the problematic relations between the West and the countries of the Third World that were once European colonies. This collection explores the artistic, multicultural, and global significance of Things Fall Apart from a variety of critical perspectives. The essays selected for this casebook represent the most important and well-established critical work written on the novel to date. This volume also contains an editor's introduction, an interview with Chinua Achebe, and suggestions for further reading. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from International Fiction Review, published by International Fiction Association on January 1, 2001. The length of the article is 5569 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Oral Tradition and Modern Storytelling: Revisiting Chinua Achebe's Short Stories.
Author: Ode Ogede
Publication: International Fiction Review (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2001
Publisher: International Fiction Association
Page: 67

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more