Africa's Tarnished Name by Chinua Achebe

Africa's Tarnished Name (Penguin Modern)

by Chinua Achebe

He needed to hear Africa speak for itself after a lifetime of hearing Africa spoken about by others

Electrifying essays on the history, complexity, diversity of a continent, from the father of modern African literature.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Reviewed by clementine on

5 of 5 stars

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I’m very interested in postcolonial literature (fiction and nonfiction), but it’s been some time since I’ve read any since my studies have been focused elsewhere. How convenient to have four of Chinua Achebe’s essays about postcolonial Africa in one inexpensive volume! Achebe writes with such electrifying power. The last two essays were the most impressive to me, as they grappled with colonial impositions of representations of Africa. (This automatically makes me think of Spivak’s essay “Can The Subaltern Speak?”, though written a bit more accessibly...) A quick but extremely thought-provoking read filled with zingers.

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  • Started reading
  • 23 February, 2018: Finished reading
  • 23 February, 2018: Reviewed