Chinua Achebe (Paperback) | Released: 30 Apr 2013

Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works uses the critical essay format to assess Chinua Achebe as a person, a writer and the inaugurator of the literary tradition of cultural nationalism. It progressively and thematically analyses his novels and works, comparing them with those of African literary and cultural groundbreakers in the Diaspora, including the pioneering works of Olaudah Equiano and Zora Neale Hurston The book is a unique and fresh addition to the body of writings on Africa's most respected novelist, daubed the father of modern African literature, and generally believed to be one of the 100 most important writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. A must read! Reviews of Rose Mezu's Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works "The several novels of Chinua Achebe can stand alone and can be read, appreciated and studied in isolation. They also can form an integrated corpus some progressing either spatially, historically, and genealogically from one to the other. The chapters that form Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works by Rose Ure Mezu can be viewed and read in much the same way as Achebe's novels. Each chapter while forming part of a whole can stand in isolation and on its own." -Dr. S. Okechukwu Mezu "So much ground has been covered in the field of Achebe scholarship that any new offering in it has to be outstanding to capture the serious attention of literary critics. One such new work is Rose Ure Mezu's Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works, a work of mature scholarship, a big work, hugely conceived and meticulously executed. The advantages of a lifetime of fruitful literary training and experience have gone into the making of this impressive book. It is, in my view, one of the most important books to date on Chinua Achebe's novels." -- Dr. Emmanuel Obiechina, Du Bois Non-Resident Fellow, Harvard Univ. "Rose Ure Mezu's Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works is an excellent introduction to and consideration of the issues in Achebe's major novels. It is an excellent text for high school and college students. Mezu considers numerous aspects of this African society beyond what is contained in Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God." Rudolph Lewis, ChickenBones, "Dr. Mezu's publications cover a lot of grounds. Dr. Mezu's interest in Achebe is actually part of an interest in two related matters: womanhood and black cultural nationalism... There can be little doubt that you have in Dr. Rose Mezu, a scholar with a range of interest and a capacity for reflection...maturity and professionalism." --- Prof. Michael Echeruo, William Safire Professor, Syracuse Univ. "Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works shows Rose Ure Mezu at the acme of literary interpretation and criticism. Mezu's new book is set to spur change in the scholarship and discourse on Chinua Achebe, a writer who was cited among the 100 most important writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Mezu's new book studies Achebe as a person, a writer, and as someone who initiated what Rose calls "the literary tradition of cultural nationalism." A true Pan-Africanist scholar, Mezu compares Achebe and his works with "African literary and cultural groundbreakers" in the African Diaspora...." Professor Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure, Univ. of Northern Iowa. A must read. Amazing insights in comparing works from other diasporan authors. A wealth of knowledge and fresh ideas makes this an interesting and really well thought out read. I would highly recommend this book. N. Hoang Readers of this work will acquire a thorough understanding of the significance of Achebe's influence - from the appropriation and renaming of the African space. The book maps new and important terrain in the study of Achebe's works as Dr. Mezu connects her work to issues of nationalism, sexuality, black intellectual history, visual and performing arts. This study is a real tour de force in literary criticism. Dr. Rose Ure Mezu is a fine scholar and a leader." Dr. M'Bare N'Gom, Dean, Morgan
About the Author: Dr. Rose Ure Mezu was born in Nigeria and studied in Port-Harcourt, (Nigeria), Abidjan, (Côte d'Ivoire), Buffalo (New York) and Paris (France) where she graduated with a Diplôme d'Etudes from the Sorbonne. She obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1993, specializing in Francophone and Anglo-phone Feminist Literature. She had been a Commissioner of Social Welfare in Imo State, Nigeria, and is currently an Associate Professor of English, Women Studies and Comparative Literature at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is also the founder and Co-ordinator of WADS: Black Creativity & the State of the Race, which organizes international and interdisciplinary conferences on Africa and the Diaspora. A widely published scholar, her books include Women in Chains: Abandonment in Love Relationships in the Fiction of Selected West African Writers (1994), Songs of the Hearth (1993), Homage to my People (2004), A History of Africana Women's Literature (2004), and with Dr S. Okechukwu Mezu, Black Nationalists: Reconsidering Du Bois, Garvey, Booker T. & Nkrumah (1999).