Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays

I read this as part of my required summer reading for my AP English class, and I have only previously encountered Achebe's work in Things Fall Apart. This collection of essays is often thought-provoking, quite debatable, and never dull. In his opening essay on racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it will certainly be more interesting if you have read the novel before reading Achebe's comments. Among his other essays, he reflects on the tremendous and underrated value of literature, while also fleshing out details of his Ibo ancestry. The whole of the collection is far greater than the sum of its parts.