VERY LITTLE SIGNIFICANT biographical material is available about
Chinua Achebe because of his contemporaneity. Therefore, we can-
not use the biographical mode in order to define the sociological
ground of his novels as we have done with the other authors studied
thus far. We may rely, however, on some of his own statements that
help us to locate his fiction in its social context and, more impor-
tantly, on a general understanding of the intellectual's predicament
under colonialism. Because virtually all these statements were made
after the publication of those of his novels that we will be examining,
they constitute a post facto realization by him of the influences and
imperatives that were produced by his exposure to colonial society.
We are not dealing with prior intentions of Achebe but rather with
his articulation of the sociological role and function of a writer in a
postcolonial society.

In the introductory chapter we have already examined the salient
features of colonial society that Balandier calls pathological. ¹ At this
time we need to recall two specific aspects of the dilemma produced
by colonialist praxis: denigration and historical catalepsy. In order to
reinforce his sense of superiority the European insists that the native
is physically, psychologically, socially, and morally inferior to him,
and thereby he denigrates the colonized subject and inadvertently
creates a historical paradox for the latter. Because the moral validity
and the social momentum of the indigenous culture have been ne-
gated by European denigration and by the autocratic rule of the
colonial government, the African finds that if he adheres to the
values of his own culture, he chooses to belong to a petrified society.
However, if he accepts the Western culture, he finds himself engulfed
in a form of historical catalepsy, because by rejecting his own past

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