Critiquing the postcolonial construct in Chinua Achebe's novels

Chinua Achebe's novels have always been read as texts from an erstwhile colonised African nation, interpreted within the parameters suggested by postcolonial theorists.

The confines of postcolonial readings have raised questions about when the 'postcolonial' period would end, so that writers would no longer need to 'write back' to the empire or ß rewrite' their histories.

This work explores how Achebe's novels articulate his knowledge of his own people and the manner in which he participates in the politics of representation.

He critiques the postcolonial methodology, and seeks out, recovers and provides an alternative narrative of the postcolonial experience and its aftermath, even as he seems to be moving beyond it.