Background
Chinua Achebe was born into an Ibo family on November 15, 1930, at Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria.
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(A classic story of moral struggle in an age of turbulent ...)
A classic story of moral struggle in an age of turbulent social change and the final book in Chinua Achebes The African Trilogy When Obi Okonkwo, grandson of Okonkwo, the main character in Things Fall Apart returns to Nigeria from England in the 1950s, his foreign education separates him from his African roots. No Longer at Ease, the third and concluding novel in Chinua Achebes The African Trilogy, depicts the uncertainties that beset the nation of Nigeria, as independence from colonial rule loomed near. In Obi Okonkwos experiences, the ambiguities, pitfalls, and temptations of a rapidly evolving society are revealed. He is part of a ruling Nigerian elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. His fate, however, overtakes him as he finds himself trapped between the expectation of his family, his villageboth representations of the traditional world of his ancestorsand the colonial world. A story of a man lost in cultural limbo, and a nation entering a new age of disillusionment, No Longer at Ease is a powerful metaphor for his generation of young Nigerians.
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(Here, collected for the first time in Everymans Library,...)
Here, collected for the first time in Everymans Library, are the three internationally acclaimed classic novels that comprise what has come to be known as Chinua Achebes African Trilogy. Beginning with the best-selling Things Fall Aparton the heels of its fiftieth anniversaryThe African Trilogy captures a society caught between its traditional roots and the demands of a rapidly changing world. Achebes most famous novel introduces us to Okonkwo, an important member of the Igbo people, who fails to adjust as his village is colonized by the British. In No Longer at Ease we meet his grandson, Obi Okonkwo, a young man who was sent to a university in England and has returned, only to clash with the ruling elite to which he now believes he belongs. Arrow of God tells the story of Ezuelu, the chief priest of several Nigerian villages, and his battle with Christian missionaries. In these masterful novels, Achebe brilliantly sets universal tales of personal and moral struggle in the context of the tragic drama of colonization.
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( The more Chike saw the ferry-boats the more he wanted t...)
The more Chike saw the ferry-boats the more he wanted to make the trip to Asaba. But where would he get the money? He did not know. Still, he hoped. Eleven-year-old Chike longs to cross the Niger River to the city of Asaba, but he doesnt have the sixpence he needs to pay for the ferry ride. With the help of his friend S.M.O.G., he embarks on a series of adventures to help him get there. Along the way, he is exposed to a range of new experiences that are both thrilling and terrifying, from eating his first skewer of suya under the shade of a mango tree, to visiting the village magician who promises to double the money in his pocket. Once he finally makes it across the river, Chike realizes that life on the other side is far different from his expectations, and he must find the courage within him to make it home. Chike and the River is a magical tale of boundaries, bravery, and growth, by Chinua Achebe, one of the worlds most beloved and admired storytellers.
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( A searing satire of political corruption and social inj...)
A searing satire of political corruption and social injustice from the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart 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 editor of the state-run newspaper--another childhood friend--Chris's loyalty and ideology are put to the test. The fate of Kangan hangs in the balance as tensions rise and a devious plot is set in motion to silence a firebrand critic. From Chinua Achebe, the legendary author of Things Fall Apart, Anthills of the Savannah is "A vision of social change that strikes us with the force of prophecy" (USA Today).
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(Chinua Achebe is considered the father of modern African ...)
Chinua Achebe is considered the father of modern African literature, the writer who "opened the magic casements of African fiction." The African Trilogy--comprised of Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, and No Longer at Ease--is his magnum opus. In these masterly novels, Achebe brilliantly imagines the lives of three generations of an African community as their world is upended by the forces of colonialism from the first arrival of the British to the waning days of empire. The trilogy opens with the groundbreaking Things Fall Apart, the tale of Okonkwo, a hero in his village, whose clashes with missionaries--coupled with his own tragic pride--lead to his fall from grace. Arrow of God takes up the ongoing conflict between continuity and change as Ezeulu, the headstrong chief priest, finds his authority is under threat from rivals and colonial functionaries. But he believes himself to be untouchable and is determined to lead his people, even if it is towards their own destruction. Finally, in No Longer at Ease, Okonkwo's grandson, educated in England, returns to a civil-service job in Lagos, only to see his morality erode as he clings to his membership in the ruling elite. Drawing on the traditional Igbo tales of Achebe's youth, The African Trilogy is a literary landmark, a mythic and universal tale of modern Africa. As Toni Morrison wrote, "African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe. For passion, intellect and crystalline prose, he is unsurpassed."
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(From the legendary author of Things Fall Aparta long-awa...)
From the legendary author of Things Fall Aparta long-awaited memoir of coming of age in a fragile new nation, and its destruction in a tragic civil war 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 19671970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africas most disastrous events, from a writer whose words and courage left an enduring stamp on world literature. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of research and reflection, There Was a Country is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebes place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age.
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(Twelve stories by the internationally renowned novelist w...)
Twelve stories by the internationally renowned novelist which recreate with energy and authenticity the major social and political issues that confront contemporary Africans on a daily basis.
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(Set in the Ibo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Afric...)
Set in the Ibo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Africa's best-known writers describes the conflict between old and new in its most poignant aspect: the personal struggle between father and son.
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(From the renowned author of The African Trilogy, a politi...)
From the renowned author of The African Trilogy, a political satire about an unnamed African country navigating a path between violence and corruption 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 his lustsand the two men's personal and political tauntings threaten to send their country into chaos. When Odili launches a vicious campaign against his former mentor for the same seat in an election, their mutual animosity drives the country to revolution. Published, prophetically, just days before Nigeria's first attempted coup in 1966, A Man of the People is an essential part of Achebes body of work.
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Chinua Achebe was born into an Ibo family on November 15, 1930, at Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria.
He was educated at a government college in Umuahia, and he graduated from the University College at Ibadan in 1954.
While working for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, he composed his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1959), at a time when Nigerian prose fiction was represented solely by the fantastic folklore romances of Amos Tutuola and the popular stories of urban life of Cyprian Ekwensi. Achebe's novel introduced serious social and psychological analysis into Nigerian literature. It is set in the early days of colonization and tells the tragedy of a warrior hero who rigidly identifies with the values of traditional Ibo society. For this reason, he lacks the required flexibility of mind and heart to adapt to changing conditions under incipient European impact. This novel won immediate international recognition. With his next novel, No Longer At Ease (1960), Achebe turned to the last phase of the colonial regime, describing with his usual poise and insight the tragic predicament of the young African idealist. Achebe turned his creative insight to an imaginative critique of public mores under independence. The result was A Man of the People (1966), a bitter portrayal of a corrupt Nigerian politician. The book was published at the very moment a military coup swept away the old political leadership and its abuses. That timing made some Northern military officers suspect Achebe played a role in the coup, but there was never any evidence supporting the theory. During the Biafran succession from Nigeria (1967 - 70), however, Achebe served Biafra as a diplomat. He traveled to different countries publicizing the plight of his people, focusing especially on the Ibo children being starved to death and massacred. He wrote articles for newspapers and magazines about the Biafran struggle and living in Enugu, the designated capital of Biafra, and founded the Citadel Press with Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo. Writing a novel at this time was out of the question, he said during a 1969 interview: "I can't write a novel now; I wouldn't want to. And even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I can write poetry-something short, intense, more in keeping with my mood. " Three volumes of poetry emerged from this mood, as well as a collection of short stories and children's stories. After the fall of the Republic of Biafra, Achebe continued to work as a senior research fellow at the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, a position he had assumed several years before. He also devoted much time to the Heinemann Educational Books' Writers Series, which was designed to promote the careers of young African writers, became director of Nwamife Publishers, Ltd. , and founded Okike: A Nigerian Journal of New Writing. In 1972, he came to the United States to become an English professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (he taught there again in 1987), and in 1975 he joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut. He returned to the University of Nigeria at Nsukka in 1976 and was appointed a professor emeritus there in 1985. His novel Anthills of the Savanna was published in 1987 and appeared on the short-list for the Booker Prize. Set in the imaginary West African nation of Kangan, it tells the story of three boyhood friends and the deadly effects of one's obsession with power and being elected "president for life. " In 1994, he fled to Europe from the repressive Nigerian regime, which threatened to jail him. However, he later returned to Nigeria to serve as president of the town union of his native village of Ogidi, honored as such because of his dedication to his ancestors' myths and legends. Achebe died after a short illness on 21 March 2013 in Boston, United States.
Its release coincided with Achebe's return to the United States and teaching positions at Dartmouth College, Stanford University and Bard College, among other universities. Over the years, Achebe has received dozens of honorary doctorates and several international literary awards. He is an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and his work has been translated into more than 40 languages.
(From the legendary author of Things Fall Aparta long-awa...)
(A classic story of moral struggle in an age of turbulent ...)
( A searing satire of political corruption and social inj...)
(From the renowned author of The African Trilogy, a politi...)
(Set in the Ibo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Afric...)
(Twelve stories by the internationally renowned novelist w...)
(Here, collected for the first time in Everymans Library,...)
(Chinua Achebe is considered the father of modern African ...)
( The more Chike saw the ferry-boats the more he wanted t...)
His foreign education has converted him to modern standards of moral judgment without alleviating the inner and outer pressures of traditional mores. The catastrophe derives from the hero's inability to make his choice; it is the drama of a bungled destiny in a bewildering time of rapid cultural change. Arrow of God (1964) reverted to the past once more. As the high priest of the village deity, the central character is a tribal intellectual who sees the weaknesses of the traditional outlook and senses the need for change. His mental alertness and consequent skepticism lay him open to the charge of betraying his own people. In a desperate outburst of arrogance he attempts to restore his prestige and to reassert the power of his god, but he merely succeeds in alienating the villagers, who begin to turn to the Christian missionaries. So far, Achebe had been concerned with the clash of cultures, which is an all-pervading theme in the African novel. But by the mid-1960 the exhilaration of independence had died out in Nigeria as the country was faced with the terrific political problems common to the many polyethnic states of modern Africa. The Ibo, who had played a dominant role in Nigerian politics, now began to feel they were being reduced to the status of second-class citizens by the Moslem Hausa people of Northern Nigeria.
Quotations:
"Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others. "
"In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace. "
"There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. "
"We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down. '"
"A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. "
"Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself. "
"The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. "
"The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership. "
"Mosquito [. .. ] had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. "How much longer do you think you will live?" she asked. "You are already a skeleton. " Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive. "
"Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook. "
"Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform. "
"When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. "
"Man is sitting disconsolate on an anthill one morning. God asks him what the matter is and man replies that the soil is too swampy for the cultivation of the yams which God has directed him to grow. God tells him to bring in a blacksmith to dry the soil with his bellows. The contribution of humanity to this creation is so important. God could have made the world perfect if he had wanted. But he made it the way it is. So that there is a constant need for us to discuss and cooperate to make it more habitable, so the soil can yield, you see. "
Chinua Achebe married Christiana Chinwe Okoli on 10 September 1961 and they had three children.
