AFRICAN WRITERS

Chinua Achebe & Nadine Gordimer

PREPARED BY
SI TI LI YANA OMAR
NI K NURI SYA
Biography of Chinua Achebe
Name :Albert Chinualumogu Achebe
Born :16 November 1930 Ogidi, Nigeria
Died :21 March 2013 (aged 82)
Occupation :David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor
of Africana Studies Brown University
Nationality :Nigerian
Ethnicity :Igbo
Period :19582013
Notable work(s) :The African Trilogy:Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God.
Also, A Man of the People, and Ant hills of the Savannah.
CIVIL PEACE BY ACHEBE
In eastern Nigeria after the civil war has ended. The protagonist, Jonathan Iwegbu, was able to keep his
bicycle, which he turns into a taxi to make money. In two weeks he makes 150 pounds. Jonathan then
travels to Enugu to search for his home, and to his surprise it is still standing when other structures
around it are demolished. The house needs some repairs, so Jonathan finds some supplies around and
hires a carpenter. He then moves his family back in. The entire family works hard to earn money and
rebuild their lives. The children pick mangoes and Maria makes akara balls to sell. After finding that his
job as a miner isn't a possibility he decides to run a bar for soldiers out of his house.
Jonathan gets an "egg rasher" (a butchered pronunciation of the Latin ex gratia, which translates into
"as a favor") for turning in rebel currency to the Treasury, and in exchange they gave him 20 pounds
legitimate currency. The next night, a large group of robbers show up at his house demanding 100
pounds. When Jonathan replies that he doesn't have that much money, the robbers break in and take
the 20 pounds anyway. After they take the money, life goes on as usual for Jonathan because 'Nothing
Puzzles God', meaning that the robbery has a greater meaning in God's eyes than how it seemed to
Jonathan.

Biography of Nadine Gordimer
Born :20 November 1923, Springs, Transvaal,Union of South Africa
Died :13 July 2014 (aged 90) Johannesburg, South Africa
Occupation :Writer
Language :English
Nationality :South African
Period :Apartheid-era South Africa
Genres :Novels, plays
Notable work(s) :The Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, July's People
Notable award(s):Booker Prize (1974),Nobel Prize in Literature (1991)
Africa Emergent by Nadine Gordimer
Elias Nkomo, was oppressed in by the laws. So, he went to America in the hope of getting
himself general education and freeing himself from the oppression he had in Africa.
Unfortunately, he was still affected by the oppression. He found no escape from oppression. The
oppressors from Africa were still affecting him. He was not welcome to come back to Africa. The
only escape he found from that(the oppression) was death. His only freedom was to end his life
in the hope that the oppression would no longer choke his life away or control him
Postcolonialism
Civil Peace
Clearly, Chinua Achebe is an author who is famed for being a postcolonial author based on the
way that he writes about the realities of African localities both during and after colonial rule. This
story, and the way that it presents us with how one family is impacted by the chaos and
incredible instability of Nigeria after its independence. The way that the story refers to violence,
wars and soldiers is just one indication of the way that the realities of independence were very
brutal and violent for people such as Jonathan. The thieves say that give the story its title:

Now make we talk business. We no be bad tief. We no like for make trouble. Trouble done
finish. War done finish and all the katakata wey de for inside. No Civil War again. This time na
Civil Peace. No be so?



Political issues
Africa Emergent
1.Passes have to be written out for the blacks in order to keep them from being arrested for being out
after the curfew.
-We had to remember to write out passes at night, so that our actors could get home without
being arrested for being out after the curfew for blacks...

2.According to the law, it is illegal for a black man to live in a white suburb.
-It was illegal for him to live there in a white suburb, of course, ...... the white building
inspector didnt turn a hair of suspicion when I said that I was converting the garage as a flat for
my wifes mother.


How affectively does Achebe present his
commentary of the political and social situation in
the text?

Focusing not on the hardships and devastation of the war but on the new
opportunities to rebuild. At the same time, Civil Peace insidiously
demonstrates the similarities between Nigeria during the war and after the
warduring both periods, violence and corruption can emerge at any time.
Achebe believes that the African writer must function as a social critic, and in
Civil Peace, he shares two co-existing views of the postwar Nigerian state.