This is the classic collection of Chinua AchebeA’s short fiction, written over twenty years and drawn from literary journals and magazines, to be made available to the wider public. The earliest, A ‘Marriage is a Private AffairA’ (1952), dates back to his student days at Ibadan, Nigeria, while the latest, A‘Vengeful CreditorA’ and A ‘Civil PeaceA’ (1971), are stories of the Nigerian civil war. A ‘Girls at WarA’, the title story, is about the tragic effects of war on the civilian population, in particular on one girl, who sets out with high ideals which vanish as the war drags on and the need for food replaces the need for ideals. This collection provides an interesting cross-section of AchebeA’s work and the development of his key themes and distinctive style against the significant historical and political backdrop of Africa in the decades between 1952 and 1972.

作者簡介

　　Chinua Achebe (born in 1930) was educated at the University College of Ibadan, Nigeria. In total he has written over twenty books A– novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry A– including Things Fall Apart (1958), Arrow of God (1964); Beware, Soul Brother and Other Poems (1971), winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; Anthills of the Savannah (1987), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (1988); and Home and Exile (2000). He is now a professor at Bard College, New York.