On Paths Unknown discussion

Nigeria is really a fascinating country, and as I'm sure you all know, Nigeria has offered up many internationally-known authors, so I think it deserves a thread of it's own. Most of you have probably read it already, but a good place to start would be with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

So for now, the Nigeria discussion will deal with that novel, but anything related to it can also be discussed in this thread, thanks!

Just to start the ball rolling, I personally enjoyed the style of the novel, it's not quite as sophisticated as Garcia-Marquez's and some other magical-realist's work, who also writes about superstitions, but then, I think Achebe is simply showing, not really writing in an MR style, though other may disagree.

I find the misogyny of the tribe being described stunning, and found Okonkwo to be one of the most unlikeable protagonists that I've read so far, barring Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita.

I do like that Achebe is at least honest about the negative aspects of the tribe's culture and religious traditions. Perhaps I should leave commentary on that for a later message.

I found an online downloadable copy of An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&r...

Ok, so Things Fall Apart deals with the first contact with English missionaries of one of the 3 major groups in Nigeria, being the Igbo tribe, who are mainly Christian and traditional in religion. Another large group is the Yoruba, who seem to have a syncretised religion and culture from various sources; here is a video about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRy92... as told by a Yoruba man

This is a better and clearer (more concise) video for non-Africans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-fMG...

The other group is the Hausa-Fulani, who are partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa. Traditionally they are associated with the Sultanate of Soto ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokoto_...

The Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970 was mainly fought between the latter group and the Igbo, who wanted to secede from Nigeria and create their own country, namely the Republic of Biafra. Starvation and genocide took place, the French and the Brititsh were involved, and the images of starvation among the women and children are absolutely heartbreaking. Check out Wikipedia for a short introduction to the Biafrian war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria...