Critical Essays: Achebe, Baldwin, Cullen, Ngugi, and Tutuola

"Critical Essays" is an incisive story of five accomplished black writers of our century. These are writers who have used their arts and aesthetics as functional instruments for the furtherance of human dignity, the catering of human therapeutic cravings for laughter and self-reflection, the human need for the joy of sheer imaginings, and humankind's incessant search for spirituality and meaning. It presents some refreshing new readings of Achebe's culture-contact ground-breaking novels, of Baldwin's two-prong aesthetics–corrective censure, and ameliorative love, and Ngugi's ironic portrayal of the unholy alliance of religion and colonialism in Kenya. The book also mounts a spirited defense of Cullen against some errant misreadings of his works, and consequent misinformation of budding readers. Finally, it gives Tutuola a reassuring place in the annals of African literature. Because of its "thematic strands" and the author's "probing critical insights into the works he has chosen to study and explain" (writes Professor Dubem Okafor, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania), "Critical Essays" would be an invaluable companion to students and teachers of literature and humanities.