Beware Soul Brother

One of Achebe’s most important contributions to literature is his involvement with postcolonial writing and criticism. Post-colonialism criticism focuses on the experiences of people and cultures from formally colonized countries. Its purpose is to understand and describe the experiences of these people and the lasting impact colonialism continues to have on them.

One foundational postcolonial concept is double consciousness, which refers to the mostly contradictory experiences and modes of identity that formerly colonized people have. For example, Achebe was steeped in traditional Igbo religious and cultural customs, but he was also raised as a Christian. These two identities, Odinani and Christian, reflect his identity as both a colonized person and a person who was raised by colonizers. Dealing with these two conflicting identities can cause trauma and stress, and it can lead to an identity crisis. Postcolonial writing often attempts to deal with this.

One aspect of double consciousness that Achebe dealt with often was the issue of language. Achebe believed it was best to write in English, not in Igbo. He believed this because the dominant group, the colonizers, already established English as the language of discourse, so to get an authentic voice into that conversation, one had to appropriate the language. Other postcolonial thinkers believe art should be created in native languages as an act of cultural solidarity and defiance against colonial norms. Achebe used a hybrid method by writing mostly in English but incorporating some Igbo terms. He did this famously in Things Fall Apart, including an Igbo glossary in the back of the book, and he also does this in “Beware Soul Brother.”