In the following interview, originally conducted on May 28, 1989, and first published in Callaloo in 1991, Achebe discusses the role of the writer and literature in an African context, paying particular attention to indigenous narrative traditions, the influence of the English language on the continent, and the genesis of his own identity as a writer.

Ten Kortenaar has written other scholarly articles on Achebe. In the following essay, he compares similarities in the narrative strategies of the colonized and the colonizer to define their respective cultural identities in Arrow of God.

In the following essay, Adeeko examines various manipulations of a thematic Nigerian proverb in Arrow of God, arguing that its intentional misuse contributes to the novel's tragedy.

In the following essay, Kanaganayakam compares and contrasts Achebe's narrative technique in Anthills of the Savannah to that of his earlier works.

Wachtel is a writer and radio personality who hosts CBC Radio's Sunday literary program "Writers & Company." In the following interview, originally broadcast in January, 1994, Achebe discusses his personal and literary background, the evolution of his literary career, and his role in and hopes for the Nigerian political economy.

Kalu is an American educator whose research interests include multiculturalism, women in the African diaspora, African and African-American literary theory construction, and African development issues. In the following essay, Kalu demonstrates how Achebe's use of traditional Igbo religious, political, philosophical, and artistic motifs in Arrow of God combine to illumine the abstract notion of duality.

In the following essay, Robson examines various types of English that appear in Anthills of the Savannah, demonstrating how each reflects differences in education, social status, and cultural context.

[Achebe's short stories in Girls At War] reveal the same interests as the longer fiction…. [The stories] fall into two classes: those which show an aspect of the conflict between traditional and modern values—for example, 'The Sacrificial Egg', 'Dead Man's Path', and 'Marriage is a Private Affair' (originally called 'The Beginning of the End')—and those which display the nature of custom or religious belief without at...

[Achebe's declared aims as a writer] are twofold: to teach his people, and to satirise them; or, as he puts it, 'to help my society regain its belief in itself' and 'to expose and attack injustice'. The first is part of his contribution to the task of giving back to Africa the pride and self-respect it lost during the years of colonialism, to repair 'the disaster brought upon the African psyche in the period of subjection to alien races'. In this way, he take...

In the following essay, Awuyah analyzes Ezeulu's attitudes toward colonial authorities in Arrow of God, focusing on the significance of his decision to send Oduche to a Christian missionary school.

Achebe's first three novels, Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God have been published as a trilogy. His last novel to date (and surely, now, there must come a book about the recent Nigerian/Biafran conflict) is Man of the People. Superficially, however, the novels fall into two camps. Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God are "traditional" novels in that they are situated firmly in the past, in the traditional Ibo culture and way of life. No Longer at Ease and Man of the P...

A Man of the People, Achebe's fourth novel, embodies a major new feature in his development as a novelist. It is a first person narrative told from the limited point of view of one of the principal participants in the story, and the accounts are given not very long after the final catastrophe. The major personal conflict in the book is between Chief the Honourable M. A. Nanga, M.P., and Odili Samalu, his former pupil. In his capacity as narrator Odili begins his story with a deliberately sarcastic st...

Chinua Achebe is very clearly the best novelist in that group of writers who at Ibadan in the fifties contrived the birth of West African literature in English. He may lack the easy grace and wit of that urbane dramatist Wole Soyinka, yet his work has a structural strength and architectural coherence unmatched by other novelists…. So close are many African novelists to the events they record that there is none of that artistic distance which is the basis for the writer's art. Plots mirror the ...

[Chinua Achebe's four novels] are all set in Nigeria. Read as a tetralogy, they reveal a theme of tragedy together with intense moral concern. The tragedy and moral concern are not just for the fictional characters in the novels, nor are they just for the people of Nigeria, who experience extreme changes in their lives as a result of colonialism and internal strife. Rather, these novels, as they focus upon tragedy and morality, transcend their setting. By being extremely provincial, Achebe projects a...

In reading Arrow of God, it's not … necessary to know that there is such a place as the African continent to recognize at once that you are in the presence of an extraordinarily mature literary artist. In fact, I don't think it extravagant to say that the book brings to mind Joyce Cary's African novels. It must be added, however, that if Achebe should ever happen to read this he would probably dissent vigorously and take the comparison as affront rather than honor. More than once...

Before he opens ["Arrow of God"], the American reader will be well advised to ask himself two basic questions. Is he about to read it because it's a new novel—or because it's written by a prominent Nigerian about Nigeria? Will he judge it as fiction, or as ethnic reporting of ancient customs in conflict with new politics? In both cases, the second approach will prove more rewarding—though even then the rewards will be on the meager side…. Not that Mr. Achebe&...

[In A Man of the People Achebe] illuminates today's confused events along the opaque waters of the Niger. Life imitates art, but seldom so promptly on cue. Achebe's book sounds the obituary drums for "the fat-dripping, gummy, eat-and-let-eat regime" that history has extinguished, and makes clear why his still unstable nation should turn to military government. In fact, his novel ends with just such a military coup, the first of many, it seems…. Achebe tells his story throu...

"Girls at War" is ironic, witty and complex in its consideration of various ways in which the old Africa interacts with the new. In "Dead Man's Path," one of the best and most representative of the stories, an ambitious and "modern" young teacher is assigned to take over the school in a provincial village. A path runs through the school grounds, connecting the village with the ancestral graveyard; the teacher considers it an eyesore, and closes it off. ...

The mood [of Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems] is as varied as the subject matter. The opening section deals with the years immediately before the Nigerian Civil War, and the second section (from which the book's title is taken), with the war period. Then there are "Poems Not About War"—about you and me, and about gods and the things they do to men. Achebe writes with grace and clarity. The poems, throughout, reflect the attachments of a man whose roots run deep into the Ibo s...

[The stories in "Girls at War and Other Stories"] show, among other things, how British colonialism, the disintegration of tribal ways, modern education, and the Biafran war have affected Nigerian life. The excellent title story is about a proud young Ibo girl who becomes completely demoralized by the war. In another story, "The Voter," old rituals and new money are used to fix a local election. Mr. Achebe's writing has a kind of serene, grandfatherly quality—especi...

[Arrow of God] is not comfortable reading, nor is it easy to keep track of three dozen minor characters with names like Ofuedu and Amoge, but Arrow of God is worth the effort. It is enormously informative. It crackles with ironic contrasts and the sour comedy of reciprocal misunderstanding. Old Ezeulu and his unreliable sons are vividly living people whose unfamiliar principles gradually become comprehensible and worthy of respect. One even grows fond of their proverbs. Phoebe-Lou Adams, in her...