Escribir en la encrucijada: intertextualidad y polifonía en la obra de Chinua Achebe

Abstract

Sixty years after the publication Things Fall Apart in 1958, Chinua Achebe’s novels continue to offer interesting perspectives of the historic conditions that gave origin to modern African society. The aim of this article is to analyze the ways in which through a complex use of intertextuality, Achebe interrogates the intercultural relationships arising from European expansion, as well as the ways in which such relations shaped the hybrid societies of today. I contend that in his novels, Achebe not only examines Nigeria’s history from the colonial era to the first years after independence, but also offers a complex metacommentary on the literary modes of representation of modern Africa.