Chinua Achebe, The Anthills of the Savannah

Matthew Whittle (University of Kent at Canterbury)
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Offering a comment on the paranoia of life in a totalitarian state, Chinua Achebe remarks in his fifth novel,

Anthills of the Savannah

(1987), that:

Worshipping a dictator is such a pain in the ass. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was merely a matter of dancing upside down on your head. With practice anyone could learn to do that. The real problem is having no way of knowing from one day to another, from one minute to the next, just what is up and what is down. (41)

Worshipping a dictator is such a pain in the ass. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was merely a matter of dancing upside down on your head. With practice anyone could learn to do that. The real problem is having no way of knowing from one day to another, from one minute to the next, just what is up and what is down. (41)

It is

2609 words

Citation: Whittle, Matthew. "The Anthills of the Savannah". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 July 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13236, accessed 23 November 2024.]

13236 The Anthills of the Savannah 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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