New Releases by Chinua Achebe

"Okonkwo es un gran guerrero, cuya fama se extiende por toda el África Occidental, pero cuando mata accidentalmente a un prohombre de su clan es obligado a expiar su culpa con el sacrificio de su hijastro y el exilio. Cuando por fin puede regresar a su aldea, la encuentra repleta de misioneros y gobernadores británicos; su mundo se desintegra, y él no puede más que precipitarse hacia la tragedia. Publicada por vez primera en 1958, y desde entonces ha vendido más de diez millones de ejemplares en cuarenta y cinco idiomas"--Page 4 of cover.

La freccia di Dio, pubblicato nel 1964 a sei anni di distanza da Le cose crollano e Non più tranquilli, rappresenta il completamento della “Trilogia africana” di Chinua Achebe, considerata universalmente il suo capolavoro. Ezeulu è il sacerdote di una divinità che rappresenta l’unità dei sei villaggi di Ulmuaro. È un uomo capace di giudizio e anche di una certa diplomazia, ma la sua autorità sta pian piano venendo meno di fronte alla minaccia degli altri: i bianchi funzionari del nuovo governo coloniale inglese. Non crolla però la sua sicurezza: è una freccia nell’arco di Dio, di questo è sicuro, e forte di tale convinzione si prepara a guidare il suo popolo, fino alla distruzione e all’annientamento, se sarà necessario. Crudo e potente, La freccia di Dio è il ritratto indimenticabile della perdita della fede, della lotta fra la tradizione e il cambiamento, della convivenza di culture e religioni diverse, nel flusso inarrestabile di una storia che esonda dal tempo e dai continenti. “ Il mio romanzo preferito.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chinua Achebe is considered the father of modern African literature, the writer who "opened the magic casements of African fiction." The African Trilogy--comprised of Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, and No Longer at Ease--is his magnum opus. In these masterly novels, Achebe brilliantly imagines the lives of three generations of an African community as their world is upended by the forces of colonialism from the first arrival of the British to the waning days of empire. The trilogy opens with the groundbreaking Things Fall Apart, the tale of Okonkwo, a hero in his village, whose clashes with missionaries--coupled with his own tragic pride--lead to his fall from grace. Arrow of God takes up the ongoing conflict between continuity and change as Ezeulu, the headstrong chief priest, finds his authority is under threat from rivals and colonial functionaries. But he believes himself to be untouchable and is determined to lead his people, even if it is towards their own destruction. Finally, in No Longer at Ease, Okonkwo''s grandson, educated in England, returns to a civil-service job in Lagos, only to see his morality erode as he clings to his membership in the ruling elite. Drawing on the traditional Igbo tales of Achebe''s youth, The African Trilogy is a literary landmark, a mythic and universal tale of modern Africa. As Toni Morrison wrote, "African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe. For passion, intellect and crystalline prose, he is unsurpassed."

Okonkwo è un guerriero, un lottatore, un uomo ambizioso e rispettato che sogna di divenire leader indiscusso del suo clan. Dal suo villaggio Ibo, in Nigeria, la fama di Okonkwo si è diffusa come un incendio in tutto il continente. Ma Okonkwo ha anche un carattere fiero, ostinato: non vuole essere come suo padre, molle e sentimentale, lui è deciso a non mostrare mai alcuna debolezza, alcuna emozione, se non attraverso l’uso della forza. Quando la sua comunità è costretta a fronteggiare l’irruzione degli europei, l’ordine delle cose in cui Okonkwo è nato e cresciuto comincia a crollare, e la sua reazione sarà solo il principio di una parabola che lo porterà nella polvere: da guerriero temuto e venerato, a eroe sconfitto, oltraggiato. Le cose crollano, il primo libro della trilogia che ha consegnato Chinua Achebe alla fama internazionale – in corso di pubblicazione presso La nave di Teseo in una nuova traduzione – è unanimemente considerato il suo capolavoro, capace di intrecciare nella stessa vicenda due storie diverse: quella personale di Okonkwo e quella più ampia dello scontro fra due religioni e civiltà. Nella scrittura di Achebe, interprete di una grande tradizione letteraria, i conflitti ancestrali fra individuo e comunità dialogano con i percorsi accidentati della storia, le cui conseguenze investono ancora il mondo in cui viviamo.

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection Mrs. Emenike resents that her husband drives a Mercedes while she is relegated the “noisy Fiat,” and she loathes the words “free primary education,” a new government initiative for which three of her servants have abandoned her. But, when the program is recalled, ten-year-old Vero, whose hopes of going to school have been dashed, is Mrs. Emenike’s next willing recruit—young, innocent, and desperate to do anything and everything she must to earn an education. In this masterful story by “the father of Nigerian writing,” Chinua Achebe portrays the devastating injustice done to young women by government corruption and wealth inequality. Selected from Achebe’s much-lauded collection of short fiction, Girls at War. An ebook short.

Arrow of God reverts to the tribal world. Ezeulu, the head priest of Ube,faces an erosion of values both from within his tribe and from without. On the one hand are the men of his tribe who align with and abet the European missionaries and on the other are the colonial invaders who are impinging on the old African way of life.

Fünf große Heimatromane der Weltliteratur. Groß spannt sich das Land – 5 Romane über die gute alte Zeit: Gavino Ledda. Padre Padrone: Die autobiografische Erzählung einer von Gewalt und Hassliebe geprägten Kindheit. Chinua Achebe. Alles zerfällt: Eine Geschichte des Kolonialismus, mit der der Schwarze Kontinent erstmals eine Stimme erhält. Selma Lagerlöf. Gösta Berling: Selma Lagerlöfs Erstlingswerk über Pfarrer Gösta Berling, der zu einem besseren Menschen geläutert wird. Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. Seelenfrieden: Über die abenteuerliche Traumwelt eines jungen Mannes auf der Suche nach sich selbst Iwan Bunin.Das Dorf: Ein Panorama des düsteren Provinzlebens im vorrevolutionären Russland – großartig geschrieben Gavino Ledda. Padre Padrone. Sarde Gavino Ledda ist der berühmteste Hirtenjunge der Welt. Dem Diktat seines Vaters folgend, verbringt er die ersten 20 Jahre seines Lebens auf der Weide, als Analphabet, beinahe stumm – so will es die Tradition und so erzwingt es der Vater. Doch Gavino zerbricht nicht an den psychischen und physischen Schikanen seines despotischen Vaters. Die ihn umgebende Natur ist für ihn tröstender Schutzraum und hilft ihm, seinen wachen Verstand zu bewahren. Mit ungeheurer Energie bildet er sich autodidaktisch weiter, bis er schließlich das Abitur schafft und zum Studieren nach Rom gehen kann. Mit 30 unterrichtet der vormals Sprachlose Sprachwissenschaften, vier Jahre danach schreibt er seine Lebensgeschichte auf. Chinua Achebe. Alles zerfällt. In seinem Meisterwerk zeichnet Achebe die Geschichte der nigerianischen Igbo in den 1890er-Jahren nach. Okonkwo, stark und jähzornig, stößt sich an den strengen Stammesregeln und zerbricht am Regime der britischen Kolonialherren. Achebe erzählt von Verrat und Rache, von Leidenschaften, die keine Ruhe finden, und von Sehnsüchten, die keine Zukunft haben. Selma Lagerlöf. Gösta Berling. Die Geschichte um den aufsässigen Gottesmann Gösta Berling, der durch alle Höhen und Tiefen des Daseins muss, machte die Schriftstellerin berühmt. Mit der bildreichen Sprache und den feinsinnigen Charakterzeichnungen gehört „Gösta Berling“ zu den Meisterstücken der Weltliteratur. In der Tradition der nordischen Sagenkultur stehend, fasziniert der Roman vor allem mit seinem Reichtum an alten Dorfgeschichten, Sagen und Familienerinnerungen, die sich in der Landschaft Värmland ereignen. Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. Seelenfrieden. Der junge Historiker Mümtaz hat eine geradezu osmotische Beziehung zu der alten, vom Verfall bedrohten Sultansmetropole: zu ihren Bauwerken, zum Basar voller rätselhafter Dinge, zur Poesie, zur klassischen Musik. Als er Nuran kennenlernt, erwacht in dieser Liebe einen Sommer lang der Zauber der alten osmanischen Kultur zu neuem Leben. Tanpinar schildert die abenteuerliche Traumwelt eines jungen Mannes auf der Suche nach sich selbst, und damit auch sein eigenes Schwanken zwischen Traum und Wirklichkeit. Iwan Bunin. Das Dorf. „Das Dorf“, eines der bekanntesten und beeindruckendsten Werke Bunins, entfaltet mit der Geschichte der ungleichen Brüder Krassow, die an Schauplätzen wie dem Kramladen, dem Jahrmarkt, der Vorstadt, der Landstraße oder in der Bauernstube spielt, ein Panorama des düsteren Provinzlebens im vorrevolutionären Russland. Bunin beschreibt dieses Leben in all seinen Facetten, schonungslos und dennoch mit Verständnis, ja, beinahe liebevoll.

As Minister for Culture, the Honourable M. A. Nanga is ''a man of the people'', as cynical as he is charming, and a roguish opportunist. At first, the contrast between Nanga and Odili, a former pupil who is visiting the ministry, appears huge. But in the ''eat-and-let-eat'' atmosphere, Odili''s idealism soon collides with his lusts - and the two men''s personal and political tauntings threaten to send their country into chaos. Published, prophetically, just days before Nigeria''s first attempted coup in 1966, A Man of the People is an essential part of his body of work dealing with modern African history.

Ezeulu, headstrong chief priest of the god Ulu, is worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. But he is beginning to find his authority increasingly under threat - from his rivals in the tribe, from those in the white government and even from his own family. Yet he still feels he must be untouchable - surely he is an arrow in the bow of his God? Armed with this belief, he is prepared to lead his people, even if it means destruction and annihilation. Yet the people will not be so easily dominated. Spare and powerful, Arrow of God is an unforgettable portrayal of the loss of faith, and the struggle between tradition and change. Continuing the epic saga of the community in Things Fall Apart, it is the second volume of Achebe''s African trilogy, and is followed by No Longer at Ease.

From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes a longawaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature. Achebe masterfully relates his experience, bothas he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people. Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age.

Der Afrika-Roman, der die moderne afrikanische Literatur begründete und die Weltliteratur prägte – endlich in neuer Übersetzung! Chinua Achebe erzählt von Verrat und Rache, von Leidenschaften, die keine Ruhe finden, und von Sehnsüchten, die keine Zukunft haben. Okonkwo, stark und jähzornig, stösst sich an den strengen Stammesregeln und zerbricht an dem Regime der britischen Kolonialherren. In seinem Meisterwerk beschreibt Achebe den Konflikt einer archaischen Kultur in einer Sprache, die rituell-sprichwörtlich, dokumentarisch und elementar poetisch ist: Mit diesem Roman erhielt der Kontinent eine Stimme.

Recounts how the leopard got his claws and teeth and why he rules the forest with terror.

After an 11-year-old Nigerian boy leaves his small village to live with his uncle in the city, he is exposed to a range of new experiences and becomes fascinated with crossing the Niger River on a ferry boat.

Beautifully written yet highly controversial, An Image of Africa asserts Achebe''s belief in Joseph Conrad as a ''bloody racist'' and his conviction that Conrad''s novel Heart of Darkness only serves to perpetuate damaging stereotypes of black people. Also included is The Trouble with Nigeria, Achebe''s searing outpouring of his frustrations with his country. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

In this novel, the so-called sequal to Things Fall Apart Achebe creates a classic story of both personal and moral struggle, and turbulent social conflict. Written before Achebe was thirty, No Longer at Ease tell the story of Obi Okonowo, a man whose foreign education has separated him from his African roots and made him a part of a ruling elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. The agony of choosing between traditional values and the demands of a changing world is dramatized with unequaled clarity and poignancy. Still relevant more than forty years after it was written, No Longer at Ease remains a brilliant statement of the challenge facing African society.

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.

From one of the greatest writers of the modern era, an intimate and essential collection of personal essays on home, identity, and colonialism Chinua Achebe’s characteristically eloquent and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. From a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria to considerations on the African-American Diaspora, from a glimpse into his extraordinary family life and his thoughts on the potent symbolism of President Obama’s elections—this charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise collection is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.

A collection of poetry spanning the full range of the African-born author''s acclaimed career has been updated to include seven never-before-published works, as well as much of his early poetry that explores such themes as the African consciousness, the tragedy of Biafra, and the mysteries of human relationships.

A reading and study guide for Chinua Achebe''s novel Things Fall Apart.

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.