Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8264-9084-1
Verlag: Bloomsbury 3PL

Buch, Englisch, 144 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 182 g

Reihe: Reader's Guides

Reader's Guide to one of the best known African novels, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart (1958) has become the best known and most successful novel written by an African writer about Africa. It was influential in the beginnings of the postcolonial theory movement and is widely studied by students across a range of disciplines and levels.
- For students outside Africa, there is a definite need for an introduction to the novel's Nigerian context as well as to its wider context within African writing. This is the first general introduction to the novel, suitable for undergraduates and including information on contexts, language, themes and criticism.
- Student-friendly features include discussion points, questions, suggestions for further study and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

Reader's Guides provide a comprehensive starting point for any advanced student, giving an overview of the context, criticism and influence of key works. Each guide also offers students fresh critical insights and provides a practical introduction to close reading and to analysing literary language and form. They provide up-to-date, authoritative but accessible guides to the most commonly studied classic texts.

Chinua Achebe's remarkable novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is probably the best known African novel and has become one of the world's most influential literary masterpieces. Since publication, a total of nearly 12 million copies have been sold, with translations into more than 50 languages. Despite its undoubted success, its apparent simplicity has tended to blind readers to the dazzling storytelling resources and the inventive language, plot, setting, and characterization which first draw them to the novel and keep them reading. This is the ideal guide to the text, setting Things Fall Apart in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception and examining its afterlife in literature, film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading.

Zielgruppe

Introductory Undergraduate, Upper Level Undergraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ogede, Ode

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Postkoloniale Literaturen in Englisch, Englische Literatur außerhalb Europas
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Afrikanische Literaturen
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Einzelne Sprachen & Sprachfamilien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Contexts: Achebe, Among Pre-Independence African Writers, Contemporary Writing and His Other Work
2. Language, Style and Form
3. Reading Things Fall Apart: The Communal World, The Embattled Zones of Conquest, and the Decline of Tradition
4. Critical Reception, Interpretation and Afterlife (adaptation and influence)
5. Guide to Further Reading
6. Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Ode Ogede is Professor of English at North Carolina Central University and past vice-president of the Modern Language Association of America. His publications include Achebe and the Politics of Representation and numerous essays on modern African fiction.