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Transcription: [00:06:55]
{SPEAKER name="Brooks B. Robinson"}
was very late in flowering as far as
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African English prosaic or fiction to non-fiction writing is concerned.
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But once the writers began to appear, the numbers just grew about astronomical counts of proportions
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Now, as major West African novelists you have
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Gabriel Okara, best known as a poet but still a fine novelist
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Gabriel Okara wrote Voices in 1964
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and you have Amos Tutuola with his very famous The Palm-Wine Drinkard, in 52 (1952)
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among many many other books that he's written.
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But probably the best known West African Novelist of fiction or prosaic writer is Chinua Achebe
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Now Achebe has written 4 novel, to this day.
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The most famous being Things Fall Apart.
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Things Fall Apart, recounts the ups and downs of it's major character
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Okonkwo of Umuofia, who has to deal with all the traditions and customs of his people
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of people who have been invaded by the British and who are being colonized.
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Achebe seems to be saying in his work, through his main character Okonkwo
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That yes he have fine traditions and customs.
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But we should alter them maybe, or even put them aside to deal with the matters at hand
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namely getting rid of the colonizers, getting rid of the British.
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Okonkwo ends up committing suicide because his people,
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because of their customs and traditions won't get behind him and ban together
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to get rid of the colonizers.
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It appears that Achebe is so well liked, especially to the English reader
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because he's so adapt at presenting in just exquisite detail
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the culture, the customs, even the setting of his stories.
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Some critics comment that Achebe's books can almost serve as