Abstract
How Chinua Achebe arrived at his particular narrative methods that draw on oral tradition in prose fiction partly involves the mystery of artistic inspiration. What is clear, though, is that he recognized that a powerful resource was available to him in the implementation of a new kind of novel about West Africa. By melding African oral tradition with the novelistic form that he learned mainly through Western authors, Achebe tapped into a powerful residual storytelling bond.
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Notes
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“All literature goes back to oral storytelling—all the foundational epics, from South Asia via Greece and Africa to Central America, are deeply rooted in oral storytelling…writing has coexisted with oral storytelling since the invention of the former” (Puchner et al. xxiv).
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Lynn, T.J. (2017). Conclusion: The Ends of Narration. In: Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Narration. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51331-7_9
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