Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - My favourite book : Chinua Achebe’s 'No Longer at Ease'

one day someone is going to write a dissertation on what the previous generation of african intellectuals and writers had been reading when they were young. i never heard of james hadley chase, and now he is everywhere in people's recollections of what they read in high school and college in nigeria. why is that?? i still don't know who is he.
and years ago, i was completely blown away when i saw a film by mahatma "johnson" traore in the french cultural center in dakar; guess what, it was an adaptation of The Inspector General. of course i recognized it, not just from the gogol, but from one of the funniest comedians of my youth, the wonderful danny kaye, who made a movie version of the Real Inspector General. traore's version was brilliant, and went back probably to the 1970s or late 60s.
now here is ikhide again calling up the name of gogol.
there has to have been some circuits where these texts were being introduced to the continent. what were they?
the african writers series, that's different. i remember a bookstore in bamenda, back in the early 70s, that had the entire series stocked.
now??
what is left of the archive of literature that young people read then?
ken

On 5/2/15 9:46 PM, 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:

"Like a drift of quail, I had remained in the literary doldrums until I laid my hands on No Longer at Ease, authored by the eclectic blessed memory and patriarch of the African Novel Chinua Achebe.

He brought out the stark difference between the artistic prowess in me and the rudderless school boy of yester-years when he conjured up images and motivations through its chief protagonist Obi Okonkwo.

Strange enough, this left me with a deeper and more rewarding appreciation of the place of challenges in the lives of mortals. It further stirred up the literary eye in me to see the unseen and to think the unthought-of.

Nikolai Gogol's' comic and political genius in his satire, The Government Inspector came in calling and left me with an insatiable hunger for more of literary nuggets when he humorously depicted Mayor, the chief protagonist as an honest fool in furthering the theme of corruption in a hierarchical and imperialistic Russian society of the 1850s.

But still, No Longer At Ease remained perched at my highest echelon, while I intermingled my reading with the James Hadley Chase concoction."

My favourite book : Chinua Achebe's 'No Longer at Ease' - http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/Chinua-Achebes-No-Longer-at-Ease/-/1220/2703310/-/tpds40/-/index.html

- Ikhide

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu