Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays

by Chinua Achebe

Book Overview

One of the most provocative and original voices in contemporary literature, Chinua Achebe here considers the place of literature and art in our society in a collection of essays spanning his best writing and lectures from the last twenty-three years. For Achebe, overcoming goes hand in hand with eradicating the destructive effects of racism and injustice in Western society. He reveals the impediments that still stand in the way of open, equal dialogue...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038541479X
• ISBN13: 9780385414791
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Achebe is a master of thought

I read this as part of my required summer reading for my AP English class, and I have only previously encountered Achebe's work in Things Fall Apart. This collection of essays is often thought-provoking, quite debatable, and never dull. In his opening essay on racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it will certainly be more interesting if you have read the novel before reading Achebe's comments. Among his other essays, he reflects on the tremendous and underrated value of literature, while also fleshing out details of his Ibo ancestry. The whole of the collection is far greater than the sum of its parts.