Few African novelists writing in English have portrayed rural life in Africa with as much authenticating care and detail as has Elechi Amadi in his novels. He is one of the foremost chroniclers of the African village in creative literature. In his novels African villagers come alive in the immense variety of their individual and group activities, which are deeply informed by a shared sense of religion, ethics, social etiquette, and culture. His novels tend to project the image of an idyllic and stable world. But this world does not remain stable for long: it is sometimes undermined by the intervention of fate and the supernatural forces that determine the destinies of men and women in the traditional society; and in some cases by the people themselves, who, through stupidity or excessive passion, knock down the walls of the stability of their world. In Amadi's novels the idyllic...