ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies Chinua Achebe’s writings discussed in this book, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, and Anthills of the Savannah, as literary works of art. Although Achebe is recognised throughout Africa as the founder of African literature, this is often because his work is thought to tell the ‘African story’, particularly Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. This was to lead to thinking, what was the content of that story, and transmitting this uncovered content and handing it on, directly discouraging the reading of the texts themselves. In this book, all the texts are recognised as works of art first of all, and moreover, as major works, including No Longer at Ease, which has tended to be overlooked. The basis for this determination is the analysis of the artistic criteria in their constitution whereby they both demand and reward close reading; in short, they give what Heidegger calls ‘food for thought’.
