ABSTRACT
One of the foremost modern writers, and now widely recognised as a major world novelist, is Chinua Achebe. It is perhaps unsurprising that one of the clearest tributes to Achebe has come from a fellow major African novelist, Ngugi. The discourse of cultural authenticity articulated by writers such as Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o bears close resemblance to the work of earlier writers. Achebe is much concerned with the social function of culture and with the role of the producer of culture. However, whereas someone like Ousmane would take that to imply the necessity for a very active, even revolutionary, political involvement, Achebe's vision is more low-key and gradualist. Achebe's anger and disappointment at the behaviour of the neo-colonial black elite is something he shares with probably the majority of African writers, so much so that some critics have described post-colonial African literature as a 'literature of disillusionment'.
