
This trenchant & illuminating book by one of Africa's most influential & celebrated writers is a major statement on the importance & dangers of stories one in which Achebe makes telling use of his personal experiences to examine the political nature of culture & specifically literature. It is the weaving of the personal into the bigger picture that makes Home & Exile so remarkable & 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. Achebe challenges the way the West has appropriated Africa with a particular emphasis on how 'imperialist' literature has been used to justify its dispossession & degradation. Above all this is a book that articulates persuasively why literature matters. Stories are a real source of power in the world Achebe concludes & to imitate the literature of another culture is to give that power away.