{"product_id":"kindred-spirits-chinua-achebe-and-toni-morrison-9780813947129","title":"Kindred Spirits: Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner--2022 College Language Association Book Prize \u003cbr\u003e Finalist--2024 African Literature Association's Best Scholarly Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe--author of \u003ci\u003eThings Fall Apart, \u003c\/i\u003e one of the towering works of twentieth-century fiction--is considered the father of modern African literature. The equally revered Toni Morrison, author of masterworks such as \u003ci\u003eBeloved\u003c\/i\u003e and one of only four Americans to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in the past half-century, acknowledged African literature's and Achebe's influence on her own work. Until now, however, there has been no book that focuses on and critically explores the rich connections between these two writers. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In \u003ci\u003eKindred Spirits, \u003c\/i\u003e Christopher Okonkwo offers the first comparative study of Morrison and Achebe. Surveying both writers' oeuvres, Okonkwo examines significant relations between Achebe's and Morrison's personal backgrounds, career histories, artistic visions, and life philosophies, finding in them striking parallels. He then pairs a trilogy of novels by each author: Achebe's \u003ci\u003eThings Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eArrow of God\u003c\/i\u003e and Morrison's \u003ci\u003eBeloved, Jazz, and Paradise.\u003c\/i\u003e Okonkwo closely analyzes these two sequences--through what he theorizes as \"villagism\"--as century-spanning village literature that looks to the local to reveal the universal. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eChristopher N. Okonkwo is Associate Professor of English and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia and author of \u003ci\u003eA Spirit of Dialogue: Incarnations of Ogba?je, the Born-to-Die, in African American Literature.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Virginia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50863462449426,"sku":"9780813947129","price":41.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7ba5d3ca-33f7-459a-9b65-3280665456df.jpg?v=1737638388","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/kindred-spirits-chinua-achebe-and-toni-morrison-9780813947129","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}