The Four Novels of Chinua Achebe

Download or read book The Four Novels of Chinua Achebe written by Benedict Chiaka Njoku and published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften. This book was released on 1984 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Four Novels of Chinua Achebe" is a critical study of Africa's foremost novelist by one of Africa's foremost critics. Offering a fresh, useful and unified collection of essays, the book contains exquisite prose analysis, distinctive in its sub- ject-matter and rhetoric. Analytically and philosophically, Dr. Njoku probes Achebe's fictional world with its realistic and naturalistic trends. Dr. Njoku follows Achebe as he examines the traditional life and cultures of the Igbo people in the nineteenth century, examines the village life of the people in their early years of contact with the Europeans, and carries us to the life and traditions of the people in the 1920s. To him "No Longer At Ease" is a novel of realism heightened by serious, social and psychological analysis, and it outlines the conflict between the idealism of a European-educated African and his attempt to re-integrate himself into the life of his people. The tragic consequences of Africa's encounter with Europe are evaluated. In "A Man of The People, " Dr. Njoku shows that intellectual sophistication is not everything as he contrasts Odili's intellectual brilliance with the pragmatic, naive, political wisdom of his foil, Chief Nanga.