Author: Chinua Achebe
-
A Man of the People
As Minister for Culture, former school teacher M. A. Nanga is a man of the people, as cynical as he is charming, and a roguish opportunist. When Odili, an idealistic young teacher, visits his former instructor at the ministry, the division between them is vast. But in the eat-and-let-eat atmosphere, Odili’s idealism soon collides with…
-
Anthills of the Savannah
In the fictional West African nation of Kangan, newly independent of British rule, the hopes and dreams of democracy have been quashed by a fierce military dictatorship. Chris Oriko is a member of the president’s cabinet for life, and one of the leader’s oldest friends. When the president is charged with censoring the opportunistic…
-
Arrow of God
When Things Fall Apart ends, colonial rule has been introduced to Umuofia, and the character of the nation, its values, freedoms, religious and socio-political foundations have substantially and irrevocably been altered. Arrow of God, the second novel in Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, moves the historical narrative forward. This time, the action revolves around Ezeulu,…
-
Home and Exile
Powerful and deeply personal, these three essays by the great Nigerian author articulate his mission to rescue African culture from the narratives written by Europeans. Looking through the prism of his experiences as a student in English schools in Nigeria, he recalls his first encounters with European perspectives on Africa in the works of Joyce…
-
No Longer at Ease
Written before Achebe was thirty, No Longer at Ease tell the story of Obi Okonowo, a man whose foreign education has separated him from his African roots and made him a part of a ruling elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. The agony of choosing between traditional values and the demands of a changing world…
-
The Education of a British-Protected Child
Chinua Achebe’s characteristically measured and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. In a preface, he discusses his historic visit to his Nigerian homeland on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, the story of his tragic car accident nearly twenty years ago, and the…
-
There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra
For more than forty years, Chinua Achebe maintained a considered silence on the events of the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africa’s most disastrous events, from a writer whose…
-
Things Fall Apart
Okonowo is the greatest warrior alive. His fame has spread like a bushfire in West Africa and he is one of the most powerful men of his clan. But he also has a fiery temper. Determined not to be like his father, he refuses to show weakness to anyone – even if the only way…
-
Tributes and Reflections
Chinua Achebe, renowned as Africa’s most famous novelist and author who died in Boston, USA, on 21st March 2013 at the age of 82. He is recognized as the founding father of Modern African writing in English. The publication of his first novel Things Fall Apart not only contested European narratives about Africa but also…