"Like most classic African novels in the Achebe-Ngugi tradition, The Fishermenmixes the traditional English novel form with the oral storytelling tradition, dramatising the conflict between the traditional and the modern. But The Fishermen is also grounded in the Aristotelian concept of tragedy, which mostly goes: a good and noble-minded man shows hubris and is brought down by the gods for it. Here, the hubris is shown by the fishermen's father, Mr Agwu, who aims to be better than his neighbours by siring six offspring and saying: "My children will be great men … They will be lawyers, doctors, engineers …" And with that hubris, the family's struggle against fate begins. But as in all good tragedies, after the prophecies and the omens, it is character and logic and moral choices that drive the story to its conclusion."
"The Fishermen is an elegy to lost promise, to a golden age squandered, and yet it remains hopeful about the redemptive possibilities of a new generation – what I like to call the "post-nationalist generation", described as "egrets" in the book: harbingers of a bright future."
- Helon Habila
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