A review by archytas
Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe

informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

"To any writer who is working in the remote provinces of the world and may now be contemplating giving up his room or selling his house and packing his baggage for London or New York I will say: Don’t trouble to bring your message in person. Write it where you are, take it down that little dusty road to the village post office and send it!"

 

This is a handy little volume, written in Achebe's gently acerbic prose, discussing the role of literature in rebuilding from colonialism. He discusses the ways that language can shape and challenge colonialism, and how it is systematically undermined through ex-patriate cultures, and Western literature set in continents it views through a conquerors lens.