Riddles and Bash

Riddles and Bash by novelist, poet and critic, Chin Ce, contains ten volumes of essays and book reviews published in journals of African writing in the last decade. In this second collection Ce reviews African oral traditions using the riddles and bash performances of his community as a hard, honest evaluation of modern Igbo music and culture showing how Western Christian materialism appears to have also corrupted African traditional and philosophical thoughts. The subsequent parts contain a look at new literatures and emerging tendencies in African writing, plus a chat on new Nigerian poetry and literary criticism. Ce argues that the continent is one in spite of different experiences in colonialism, nationalism and post-independent identities. And 'as we join the twenty-first century with the world becoming a global village, writers from Africa will need to preserve the heritage of their people and ensure that the healthy traditions and cultures of Africa are not lost in the march of civilisation.'