African Trilogy Books In Order
- Things Fall Apart (1958)
- No Longer at Ease (1960)
- Arrow of God (1964)
Novels
- A Man of the People (1966)
- Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
Omnibus
- Things Fall Apart / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Half of a Yellow Sun (2018)
Collections
- Girls At War (1972)
- Things Fall Apart: and Related Readings (1996)
Picture Books
- How the Leopard Got His Claws (1972)
- The Flute (1977)
Chapter Books
- Chike and the River (1966)
Anthologies edited
- Winds of Change (1977)
- African Short Stories (1987)
- The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories (1992)
Non fiction
- Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975)
- The Trouble with Nigeria (1984)
- Hopes and Impediments (1988)
- Beyond Hunger in Africa (1991)
- Critical Fictions (1992)
- Conversations with Chinua Achebe (1997)
- Another Africa (1998)
- Home and Exile (2000)
- Africa: A Short History (2004)
- The Education of a British Protected Child (2009)
- An Image of Africa / The Trouble With Nigeria (2010)
- Critical Insights: Things Fall Apart (2012)
- There Was A Country (2012)
- Africa’s Tarnished Name (2018)
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Chinua Achebe Books Overview
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a strong man of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo’s world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. Things Fall Apart is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within. From the Hardcover edition.
No Longer at Ease
This is an Intermediate Level story in a series of ELT readers comprising a wide range of titles some original and some simplified from modern and classic novels, and designed to appeal to all age groups, tastes and cultures. The books are divided into five levels: Starter Level, with about 300 basic words; Beginner Level 600 basic words; Elementary Level 1100; Intermediate Level 1600; and Upper Level 2200. Some of the titles are also available on cassette.
Arrow of God
Set in the Ibo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Africa’s best known writers describes the conflict between old and new in its most poignant aspect: the personal struggle between father and son.
A Man of the People
By the renowned author of Things Fall Apart, this novel foreshadows the Nigerian coups of 1966 and shows the color and vivacity as well as the violence and corruption of a society making its own way between the two worlds.
Anthills of the Savannah
Chris, Ikem and Beatrice are like minded friends working under the military regime of His Excellency, the Sandhurst educated President of Kangan. In the pressurized atmosphere of oppression and intimidation they are simply trying to live and love and remain friends. But in a world where each day brings a new betrayal, hope is hard to cling on to. ‘Anthills of the Savannah 1987′, Achebe’s candid vision of contemporary African politics, is a powerful fusion of angry voices. It continues the journey that Achebe began with his earlier novels, tracing the history of modern Africa through colonialism and beyond, and is a work ultimately filled with hope.
Girls At War
Girls At War and Other Stories reveals the essence of life in Nigeria and traces twenty years in the literary career of one of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed writers. In this collection of stories, which display an astonishing range of experience, Chinua Achebe takes us inside the heart and soul of a people whose pride and ideals must compete with the simple struggle to survive. Hailed by critics everywhere, Achebe’s fiction re creates with energy and authenticity the major issues of daily life in Africa.
How the Leopard Got His Claws
Recounts How the Leopard Got His Claws and teeth and why he rules the forest with terror.
Chike and the River
A dazzling and delightful classic in the making from one of the world’s most admired and mesmerizing storytellers. When Chike, an eleven year old Nigerian boy, leaves the small village of Umuofi a to live with his uncle in the city of Onitsha, he is exposed to a range of new experiences from bicycle riding to fortune telling, car washing to letter writing. As he becomes settled in his new home and school, Chike finds himself continually fascinated by the River Niger, and tries desperately to raise enough money to purchase a ticket aboard the ferry that crosses the river to the city of Asaba. Once he fi nally makes it across, Chike realizes that life on the other side of the river is far different from what he expected, and he must find the courage and resilience within him to make it home.A poignant tale of boundaries and adventure, courage and growth, Chike and the River is a warm and lovely fable for readers of all ages.
African Short Stories
Chinua Achebe has joined with C.L. Innes, co editor of ‘Okike,’ to select stories of excellence from the writings of the last twenty five years. While many of the established names such as Sembene Ousmane, Ngugi, and Bessie Head are to be found, the collection is refreshing for the inclusion of work by the wide range of writers who have made the emerging field of African fiction something to follow.
The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories
This important anthology draws together well established authors and the best of new writers, capturing the diversity of African writing across the continent.
The Trouble with Nigeria
The eminent African novelist and critic, here addresses Nigeria’s problems, aiming to challenge the resignation of Nigerians and inspire them to reject old habits which inhibit Nigeria from becoming a modern and attractive country. In this famous book now reprinted, he professes that the only trouble with Nigeria is the failure of leadership, because with good leaders Nigeria could resolve its inherent problems such as tribalism; lack of patriotism; social injustice and the cult of mediocrity; indiscipline; and corruption.
Hopes and Impediments
One of the most provocative and original voices in contemporary literature, Chinua Achebe here considers the place of literature and art in our society in a collection of essays spanning his best writing and lectures from the last twenty three years. For Achebe, overcoming goes hand in hand with eradicating the destructive effects of racism and injustice in Western society. He reveals the impediments that still stand in the way of open, equal dialogue between Africans and Europeans, between blacks and whites, but also instills us with hope that they will soon be overcome.
Conversations with Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe’s books are being read throughout the English speaking world. They have been translated into more than fifty languages. His publishers estimate that more than eight million copies of his first novel Things Fall Apart 1958 have been sold. As a consequence, he is the best known and most widely studied African author. His distinguished books of fiction and nonfiction include No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, Morning Yet on Creation Day, Christmas in Biafra, and others. Achebe often has been called the inventor of the African novel. Although he modestly denies the title, it is true that modern African literature would not have flowered so rapidly and spectacularly had he not led the way by telling Africa’s story from a distinctively African point of view. Many other Africans have been inspired to write novels by his example. The interviews collected here span more than thirty years of Achebe’s writing career. The earliest was recorded in 1962, the latest in 1995. Together they offer a representative sample of what he has said to interviewers for newspapers, journals, and books in many different countries. Through his own statements we can see Achebe as a man of letters, a man of ideas, a man of words. As these interviews show, Achebe is an impressive speaker and gifted conversationalist who expresses his ideas in language that is simple yet pungent, moderate yet peppered with colorful images and illustrations. It is this talent for deep and meaningful communication, this intimate way with words, that makes his interviews a delight to read. He has a facility for penetrating to the essence of a question and framing a response that addresses the concerns of the questioner and sometimes goes beyond those concerns to matters of general interest. ‘People,’ he says, ‘are expecting from literature serious comment on their lives. They are not expecting frivolity. They are expecting literature to say something important to help them in their struggle with life. This is what literature, what art, is supposed to do: to give us a second handle on reality so that when it becomes necessary to do so, we can turn to art and find a way out. So it is a serious matter.’ Bernth Lindfors, Professor of English and African Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of Folklore in Nigerian Literature, Popular Literatures in Africa, and Comparative Approaches to African Literatures and is the editor of Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, Approaches to Teaching Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart.’
Home and Exile
Chinua Achebe is Africa’s most prominent writer, the author of Things Fall Apart, the best known and best selling novel ever to come out of Africa. His fiction and poetry burn with a passionate commitment to political justice, bringing to life not only Africa’s troubled encounters with Europe but also the dark side of contemporary African political life. Now, in Home and Exile, Achebe reveals the man behind his powerful work. Here is an extended exploration of the European impact on African culture, viewed through the most vivid experience available to the author his own life. It is an extended snapshot of a major writer’s childhood, illuminating his roots as an artist. Achebe discusses his English education and the relationship between colonial writers and the European literary tradition. He argues that if colonial writers try to imitate and, indeed, go one better than the Empire, they run the danger of undervaluing their homeland and their own people. Achebe contends that to redress the inequities of global oppression, writers must focus on where they come from, insisting that their value systems are as legitimate as any other. Stories are a real source of power in the world, he concludes, and to imitate the literature of another culture is to give that power away. Home and Exile is a moving account of an exceptional life. Achebe reveals the inner workings of the human conscience through the predicament of Africa and his own intellectual life. It is a story of the triumph of mind, told in the words of one of this century’s most gifted writers.
The Education of a British Protected Child
From the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart and winner of the Man Booker International Prize comes a new collection of autobiographical essays his first new book in more than twenty years. Chinua Achebe’s characteristically measured and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. In a preface, he discusses his historic visit to his Nigerian homeland on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, the story of his tragic car accident nearly twenty years ago, and the potent symbolism of President Obama s election. In The Education of a British Protected Child, Achebe gives us a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria and inhabiting its middle ground, recalling both his happy memories of reading novels in secondary school and the harsher truths of colonial rule. In Spelling Our Proper Name, Achebe considers the African American diaspora, meeting and reading Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, and learning what it means not to know from whence he came. The complex politics and history of Africa figure in What Is Nigeria to Me?, Africa s Tarnished Name, and Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature. And Achebe s extraordinary family life comes into view in My Dad and Me and My Daughters, where we observe the effect of Christian missionaries on his father and witness the culture shock of raising brown children in America. Charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise, The Education of a British Protected Child is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.
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