{"id":1029,"date":"2009-12-16T09:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T17:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/chinua-achebe-past-and-present.html"},"modified":"2009-12-16T09:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T17:18:00","slug":"chinua-achebe-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/12\/chinua-achebe-past-and-present.html","title":{"rendered":"Chinua Achebe, Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

PERHAPS the most consistently engaging critics of new books these days, the New York Times’ Dwight Garner, has a fine piece<\/a> today on the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, author of colonialism classic “Things Fall Apart.” Achebe’s new collection of essays — his first book of any kind in two decades — is called “The Education of a British Protected Child.”<\/p>\n

In the new collection, which I’ve not seen yet, Achebe talks about Joseph Conrad — Achebe’s writing on the \u00a0“Heart of Darkness” and its racism have become well-known over the years — the English novels he grew up reading, Nigerian politics, and his decision to write in English and not one of his nation’s more deeply rooted languages.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

When “Things Fall Apart” — an enduring and incisive novel — turned 50 last year, I spoke to several African novelists, including Achebe himself and fellow Igbo Chris Abani. Here’s<\/a> my story. And I look forward to seeing Achebe’s new collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PERHAPS the most consistently engaging critics of new books these days, the New York Times’ Dwight Garner, has a fine piece today on the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, author of colonialism classic “Things Fall Apart.” Achebe’s new collection of essays — his first book of any kind in two decades — is called “The Education […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[347,35,346],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-achebe","7":"category-books","8":"category-nigeria","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}