Chinua Achebe The Invention And Mastery Of Modern...

In her essay Chinua Achebe: The Invention and Mastery of Modern African Literature Emeka Aniagolu labels Chinua Achebe as â€Å"the single most important literary figure in modern African literature† (1). Aniagolu goes on to praise Achebe as â€Å"perhaps the most well-known, most widely read, most translated, and most widely respected modern African writer, novelist and polemical essayist†, especially considering he as been crowned as the inventor of modern African literature (1). The praise he has received and will continue to receive from critics is certainly not misdirected, as Achebe has indeed found a way to give voice to previously poorly documented individuals. By expertly crafting narrations to sound as though the narrator is speaking in†¦show more content†¦These anxieties are because of the misrepresentation that African figures (and other colonized and minority figures) often face when being written about by or for Western audiences. Aniagolu states the importance of writing an African novel as opposed to writing a novel about Africa, and indicates that Achebe’s experience in Africa no doubt helped him in writing this novel from the inside out. She mentions that â€Å"this distinction does not simply refer to a writers geographic location at the time of writing† however, â€Å"it refers concretely to historical, psychic, cultural, social and emotional location in consciousness, time and space† (2). Achebe was obviously very consciously aware of all of this when he decided to create the story of Okonkwo, and the lens through which readers would experience it. Things Fall Apart is narrated by an unknown third person who is able to provide insight into the thoughts of most of the characters. This voice appears in the beginning to adhere to tradition, however, in the closing of the book appears to have much more modern views. Critics have noticed this and tend to argue that this means there narrator could have switched into a different