Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: A Casebook / Edition 1

by Isidore Okpewho

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195147643
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2003
Series:	Casebooks in Criticism
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	8.12(w) x 6.44(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Isidore Okpewho is Professor of Africana Studies, English, and Comparative Literature at SUNY at Binghamton.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. The African Writer and the English Language, Chinua Achebe2. Igbo Cosmology and the Parameters of Individual Accomplishment in Things Fall Apart, Clement Okafor3. Eternal Sacred Order versus Conventional Wisdom: A Consideration of Moral Culpability in the Killing of Ikemefuna in Things Fall Apart, Damian U. Opata4. "When a Man Fails Alone": A Man and his chi in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Harold Scheub5. How the Center is Made to Hold in Things Fall Apart, Neil ten Kortenaar6. The Metamorphosis of Piety in Things Fall Apart, Clayton G. MacKenzie7. Problems of Gender and History in the Teaching of Things Fall Apart, Rhonda Cobham8. Okonkwo and His Mother: Things Fall Apart and Issues of Gender in the Constitution of African Postcolonial Discourse, Biodun Jeyifo9. Fire and Transition in Things Fall Apart, Bu-Buakei Jabbi10. Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both: A Reading of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart with an evaluation of Criticism Relating To It, Ato Quayson11. An interview with Chinua Achebe, Charles H. RowellSuggested Reading1. The African Writer and the English Language: Chinua Achebe2. Igbo Cosmology and the Parameters of Individual Accomplishment in Things Fall Apart, Clement Okafor3. Eternal Sacred Order versus Conventional Wisdom: A Consideration of Moral Culpability in the Killing of Ikemefuna in Things Fall Apart, Damian U. Opata4. When a Man Fails Alone: A Man and his Chi in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart, Harold Scheub5. How the Center is Made to Hold in Things Fall Apart, Neil ten Kortenaar6. The Metamorphosis of Piety in Things Fall Apart, Clayton G. MacKenzie7. Problems of Gender and History in the Teaching of Things Fall Apart, Rhonda Cobham8. Okonkwo and His Mother: Things Fall Apart and Issues of Gender in the Constitution of African Postcolonial Discourse, Biodun Jeyifo9. Fire and Transition in Things Fall Apart, Bu-Buakei Jabbi10. Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both: A Reading of Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart with an Evaluation of Criticism Relating To It, Ato Quayson11. An interview with Chinua Achebe, Charles H. RowellSuggested Reading

Editorial Reviews

"Okpewho has been particularly successful in the careful selection of these essays which make the novel as relevant as it ever has been. What is most satisfying is not only the high quality of most of the essays, but also their overall arrangement so that they seem to be in dialogue with one another. This creates a logical thread throughout the book, and it makes for an engaging read."—African Studies Quarterly

From the Publisher