Call for Essays on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart @ 60

 

 

 

It is sixty years since 1958, when Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was first published. The Village Square Journal will be joining the rest of the world to mark the novel’s anniversary. We are seeking to publish six outstanding and brilliantly articulated essays, one every week for six weeks, starting in May 2018, that border on or/and address the following issues as well as related themes, as we countdown to the actual date of publication.

  1. The relevance of Things Fall Apart, sixty years after publication
  2. Contemporary reception of the novel in comparison with that of first readers or recipients of the novel
  3. In the face of globalisation, innovations in technology, and the Internet which have provided wider access to Igbo/African traditions and cultural life, should anyone still read Things Fall Apart?
  4. Millennials seem to show less enthusiasm to Things Fall Apart than the older generation of readers did, this could be because many did not meet it in their school syllabus and grew up to having access to many contemporary African authors and books – what do these current attitudes to Things Fall Apart spell for Achebe posthumously?
  5. Can young Africans, blacks, Commonwealth nations and “others” claim any benefits from the novel?

Entries open on March 07, 2018 and closes on April 11, 2018.

Kindly visit our submissions page www.villagesquarejournal.com/submissions for guidelines on how to send in your essays.

Editors,

The Village Square Journal

A magazine of Contemporary world literature, art & politics