A translation of Chinua Achebe’s an Image of Africa

Abstract

An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" is the published and amended version of the second Chancellor's Lecture given by Chinua Achebe at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in February 1975. The text is considered to be part of the postcolonial critical movement, which articulates the sentiment of the people of 110n-Westernized nations and is about people coping with the effects of colonialism. In "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness", Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for using racist stereotypes about the continent and people of Africa. He claims that Conrad propagated the "dominant image of Africa in the Westem imagination" rather than portraying the continent in its true form. This is the first Bangia translation of "An Image of Africa", a lecture by Achebe, to be done in Bangladesh. The lecture has actually been translated to quench the thirst of the academicians of our country who are ever conscious about the drastic impact of European colonialism as both Bangladesh and Africa have had a long legacy of colonialism. And I hope the translation will live up to the readers' expectations.