As a novelist, the prominent Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known for a number of absorbing novels about his country, notably Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), and Arrow of God (1964). As a critic, he is probably, and unfortunately, best known as the writer of an angry critique of Joseph Conrad’s famed novella of Africa Heart of Darkness (1899). Achebe’s attack, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” was first given as a talk at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1975; in revised form it is now the lead piece in Hopes and Impediments, his selection from twenty-five years’ worth of essays. In it, he judges Heart of Darkness to be irredeemably racist, and insists therefore that it should no longer be accorded its customary status “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language,” in the words of one critic. In another essay, Achebe summarizes his views even more aggressively: “I have no doubt that the reason for the high standing of this novel is simply that it fortifies racial fears and prejudices and is clever enough to protect itself, should the need arise, with the excuse that it is not really about Africa at all.”

Achebe has apparently succeeded in qualifying the critical appreciation of the Conrad work, at least to a degree. His essay was included, along with three responses (one a strong endorsement of his position, one an embarrassingly weak dissent, and one a