International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES) Vol. 9, 2008 5 Burying the Dead: The Postcolonial Strategies of Achebe and Naipaul Tahrir Khalil Hamdi Arab Open University – Jordan Abstract: Mapping out a successful postcolonial strategy/response for the ‘native intellectual’ is a worthwhile endeavour in this global era, especially as the postcolonial subject is bombarded with countless Western-based theories that emphasize ‘fragmented’ or ‘floating’ identities, which occupy an ambiguous space. This paper will examine the strategies undertaken by two current postcolonial writers, V.S. Naipaul and Chinua Achebe, who have negotiated for themselves ideologically opposed strategies, which as I will argue, represent radically different psychological states of development on the part of the two writers as evidenced by their work. Frantz Fanon’s ideas on the development of the ‘native intellectual’ will be used to help bring the psyches of these two writers into sharper focus. ‘We have a duty to the dead’. Sophocles, Antigone The ‘postcolonial’ response/strategy of the postcolonial subject presents itself as one of the most pressing issues confronting the ‘native intellectual’ (Fanon 1967) in our global age, an age which has had the effect of creating ‘fragmented’ or ‘floating’ identities (occupying a precarious in-between or ambiguous space) that are supposedly more ‘fit’ for survival in this globalized postcolonial era. Postcolonial writers have assumed various strategies in order to cope with their postcolonial situations. Two opposed strategies are best represented by two current writers—V.S. Naipaul (a native of Trinidad, now residing in England) and Chinua Achebe (a native of Nigeria and currently living in his home country). The two writers come from lands (Trinidad and Nigeria), which have seen the birth of what is now the recognized field of postcolonial literature. The difference between these two writers is in the way they view their world and their place/role in it. But it is also more than that. There is an obvious ideological divide between these two postcolonial writers; however, in addition to their ideological differences, they also represent dramatically different psychological manifestations of the postcolonial subject trying to