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Article: Linguistic power: encounter with Chinua Achebe.(Nigerian writer)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- March 12, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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While studying English literature at the University of lbadan, Chinua Achebe was appalled by the "superficial picture" of Nigeria that he found in many novels and resolved to write something that viewed his country "from the inside." The stunning result was Things Fall Apart, a novel that demonstrates the linguistic and social sophistication of precolonial African societies.
First published in 1958, the book's account of the gradual destruction of a traditional Igbo village brings to mind Yeats's lines, "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." Employing such anomalous traditions as African proverbs and Greek dramatic ...