Wat we nu lezen… By Thdress.com

Wat we nu lezen…

Of  de Nederlandse vertaling.
Na het lezen en bespreken van Joseph Conrad’s klassieker Heart of Darkness enkele maanden geleden een interssante literaire invalshoek om het kolonialisme vanuit het Afrikaanse perspectief te bekijken… De eerste grote Afrikaanse literaire klassieker in de Engelse taal.

Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, is the seminal African novel in English. Although there were earlier examples, notably by Achebe’s fellow Nigerian, Amos Tutuola, none has been so influential, not only on African literature, but on literature around the world. Its most striking feature is to create a complex and sympathetic portrait of a traditional village culture in Africa. Achebe is trying not only to inform the outside world about Ibo cultural traditions, but to remind his own people of their past and to assert that it had contained much of value. All too many Africans in his time were ready to accept the European judgment that Africa had no history or culture worth considering.

He also fiercely resents the stereotype of Africa as an undifferentiated “primitive” land, the “heart of darkness,” as Conrad calls it. Throughout the novel he shows how African cultures vary among themselves and how they change over time. Look for instances of these variations as you read.