Morning Yet on Creation Day: Essays

by Chinua Achebe

Book is in excellent shape, although the inside fly leaf shows evidence of a coffee Stain on the lower left corner. Dust cover is in reasonably good shape, some wear on the corners and a small tear on the upper front cover.

Genres: Essays, Africa, Nonfiction, African Literature, Literary Criticism

175 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Works, including the novel Things Fall Apart (1958), of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe describe traditional African life in conflict with colonial rule and westernization.

This poet and critic served as professor at Brown University. People best know and most widely read his first book in modern African literature.

Christian parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in southeastern Nigeria reared Achebe, who excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. World religions and traditional African cultures fascinated him, who began stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian broadcasting service and quickly moved to the metropolis of Lagos. He gained worldwide attention in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe defended the use of English, a "language of colonizers," in African literature. In 1975, controversy focused on his lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" for its criticism of Joseph Conrad as "a bloody racist."

When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe, a devoted supporter of independence, served as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved in political parties but witnessed the corruption and elitism that duly frustration him, who quickly resigned. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and after a car accident left him partially disabled, he returned to the United States in 1990.

Novels of Achebe focus on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and the clash of values during and after the colonial era. His style relied heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He also published a number of short stories, children's books, and essay collections. He served as the David and Marianna Fisher university professor of Africana studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, United States.

ollowing a brief illness, Achebe died.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unequivocally, there is reinforced credence when a top creative writer decides to review, criticise, or evaluate works produced by other writers. This is the case in Africa too, where many of the celebrated creative writers have also written extensively on fellow writers' products.

Hence, over the decades we have seen literary essays and criticisms brought out by the likes of Ngugi wa Thiong'o of Kenya, Es'kia Mphahlele of South Africa, Lewis Nkosi also of South Africa, Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, Kofi Awoonor of Ghana, and the illustrious prof Palmer of Sierra Leone.

Arguably, Chinua Achebe of Nigeria is the greatest ever imaginative wordsmith from Africa, and it is exhilarating that he was also a very perceptive, adroit literary critic. His imaginative "attack" on Conrad's Heart of Darkness, eg has entered the canon of international literary criticism, most famously.

But Achebe produced countless other essays and diverse appreciation of other writers and their works', especially of fellow African writers. His first major essays of this ilk appeared in this book, Morning Yet on Creation Day. Here he deals with varied concepts of literary criticism, the world, Eurocentric prism, the peculiarities of African writing and appreciation, etc. He also revisits his own past and upbringing, sociological and historical mores of his own society et al.

Achebe certainly knew and appreciated most of the early fine writers from all over Africa; in fact he facilitated the publication of initial books written by many of them, including the great Ngugi, and Flora Nwapa. In this work, with the lively, fluid detachment discernible in his own books, he discusses many of others' books, including authors like Ama Atta Aidoo, Ayi Kwei Armah, and Camara Laye.

Intermittently, Achebe does deliver rather negative comments on some of the published works, but the general impression garnered is how much this colossal African writer enjoyed savouring books written by others. An invaluable early work, and a literary treasure trove!!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used a few essays from this collection as sources in an essay I wrote last term and enjoyed them so much I kept the book. Achebe's voice comes through here on a variety of subjects, unapologetic and clear. The impression he gives is constant to his public persona - a rigorous and bold intellectual, willing and able to stand up for his causes. Several moments within the essays really brought the times he lived through into focus for me: besides a few essays and letters specfically addressing the Biafran War, a topic I know very little about, small comments such as a reference to the first post-colonial African state being founded "a little over 10 years ago" (1958), and to his own father witnessing the arrival of the first missionaries in their area, brings home how recent so much of the devastation in Africa has been.

[Castille · Rating 3 out of 5]

Achebe is an expert with language and at crafting extremely well thought out arguments. His beliefs are always clear, and every sentence is in support of furthering his stance on any given subject. The majority of the essays included express his disdain for criticism based on colonialist views, or based on foreign/primarily Western points of views, which he believes are too narrow in scope to understand or properly critique African writers. I appreciated that he often pointed out paradoxes in his arguments, but I found his vitriol to be perhaps as close-minded as those whose criticisms he decries. The fact of the matter is that everyone has an opinion, and as a writer, one must create despite that. It's absurd for an outsider to criticize an indigenous work or one created from the point of view of any distinct culture by a writer from within said culture, as if he or she knows more about the subject than the author. But I could've done with a single essay on that subject.

I much preferred Part II of the book, which was more personal and focused on the author's own observations and experiences of his culture, history, and mythologies.

[Fatou]

Chinua Achebe is one of the most outstanding African writers to deal with the issues of colonial rule and its destroying effects on the colonized.

[Raina Isabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who is more trained in their second language than their mother tongue. This one felt awfully close to home

[RK Byers · Rating 5 out of 5]

me and my chi are in agreement on this one!

[Aidan · Rating 4 out of 5]

So Dope