Home And Exile

Chinua Achebe is Africa's most prominent writer. His fiction and poetry burn with a passionate commitment to political justice, bringing to life not only Africa's troubled encounters with Europe but also the dark side of contemporary African political life. Now, in "Home and Exile", Achebe reveals the man behind his powerful work. This work is an extended exploration of the European impact on African culture, viewed through the most vivid experience available to the author - his own life. It is an extended snapshot of a major writer's childhood, illuminating his roots as an artist. Achebe discusses his English education and the relationship between colonial writers and the European literary tradition. He argues that if colonial writers try to imitate and, indeed, go one better than the Empire, they run the danger of undervaluing their homeland and their own people. Achebe contends that to redress the inequities of global oppression, writers must focus on where they come from, insisting that their value systems are as legitimate as any other. Stories are a real source of power in the world, he concludes, and to imitate the literature of another culture is to give that power away.

“The value of Achebe's book is . . . to insist that literature matters.”

The value of Achebe's book is ... to insist that literature matters. Financial Times A moving account of an exceptional life ... Achebe reveals the inner workings of the human conscience through the predicament of Africa and his own intellectual life ... A story of the triumph of the mind, told in the words of one of the century's most gifted writers. -- Henry Louis Gates Jr A book that anyone concerned with advancing social justice and human dignity should read. Seattle Times In defining the dignity and vibrancy of African literature, Chinua Achebe defies the stranglehold of colonial, imperialist and cultural dispossession. He brings us into balance with a world of literature and hope that the West with its myth of primacy denies. -- Walter Mosley

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930, and in a long and distinguished career has published novels, stories, essays and poems.Cited in the Sunday Times as one of the "1,000 Makers of the Twentieth Century" for defining "a modern African literature that was truly African" and thereby making "a major contribution to world literature". Achebe has received more than 30 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. In 2007 he was awarded the Man Booker International Prize. He lives with his wife in Annandale-on-Hudson, where they teach at Bard College. They have four children.

'A moving account of an exceptional life . . . A story of the triumphs of the mind, told in the words of one of the world's most gifted writers.'- Henry Louis Gates, JrCHINUA ACHEBE, awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2007, is one of the giants of modern literature. A masterful novelist, poet, short-story writer and essayist, his work burns with a passionate commitment to human dignity and the power of stories. Now, in Home and Exile, his first fully autobiographical work, Achebe recalls his childhood and early adulthood and reveals the man behind the writing.'A joy and an illumination to read.'- Nadine Gordimer Man Booker International Judge'Home and Exile shines through the cold cant of our winter of new empires, doing for stories what spring does for apricot trees.'- Richard Flanagan author of Gould's Book of Fish'A distillation of the thoughts and feelings of one of the world's foremost contemporary writers - it speaks for the countless millions who were silenced for generation upon generation.'- Sunday Herald'Delves deep into the psyche of oppressed peoples and concludes that it is vital for them to take back their own stories.'- Observer

This trenchant and illuminating book by one of Africa's most celebrated writers is a major statement on the importance and dangers of stories, one in which Achebe makes telling use of his personal experiences to examine the political nature of culture and specifically literature. It is the weaving of the personal into the bigger picture that makes Home and Exile so remarkable and affecting. It's the closest we are likely to get by way of Achebe's autobiography but it is also a brilliantly argued critique of imperialism. Through it Achebe challenges the way the West has appropriated Africa with a particular emphasis on how "imperialist" literature has been used to justify its dispossession and degradation of a continent. Above all this is a book that articulates persuasively why literature matters. Stories are a real source of power in the world, he concludes, and to imitate the literature of another culture is to give that power away.

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