Background
Chinua Achebe was born on November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, Nigeria, the son of an early Ibo convert to Christianity who worked as a teacher for the Church Missionary Society.
(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 Achebe’s 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 Achebe’s The African Trilogy, depicts the uncertainties that beset the nation of Nigeria, as independence from colonial rule loomed near. In Obi Okonkwo’s 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 village—both representations of the traditional world of his ancestors—and 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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(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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(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 on November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, Nigeria, the son of an early Ibo convert to Christianity who worked as a teacher for the Church Missionary Society.
During his years at University College in Ibadan (1948 - 1952) he began to write short stories.
His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), which received worldwide distribution and came to be considered a literary classic, is set during the early years of the British presence in Iboland. It centers on Okonkwo, a sullen, ambitious, and physically overpowering member of a tightly knit village community in the heart of Iboland. The work's sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), is the story of Okonkwo's grandson, Obi Okonkwo, who returns to Nigeria after completing his university education in Great Britain, only to see his high expectations for success and leadership crushed when he is accused of bribery. In Arrow of God (1964) the central figure is a traditional village priest who plants the seeds of his own destruction when he sends his son to live among Christian missionaries so that the boy might learn the ways of the white colonists. A Man of the People (1966), published only days after a coup d'étatd'etat ended Nigeria's first republic, offers an insightful and bitingly satiric portrait of the nation's first years of independence, and eerily predicts the chain of events that plunged the nation into chaos. Achebe's anguished preoccupation with the horrors of Nigeria's civil war kept him from writing long fiction for more than two decades. Instead, he focused on genres such as children's fiction, short stories (collected in Girls at War and Other Stories, 1973), poetry (Beware, Soul Brother, 1971; revised as Christmas in Biafra, 1973), and essays (Morning Yet on Creation Day, 1975; Hopes and Impediments, 1989). Anthills of the Savannah (1987), Achebe's first novel since 1966, is a chillingly effective dissection of the seductive lure of power for its own sake. In 1990 a serious car accident left Achebe confined to a wheelchair. Shortly thereafter he accepted a teaching position at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
(From the legendary author of Things Fall Aparta long-awa...)
(A classic story of moral struggle in an age of turbulent ...)
(From the renowned author of The African Trilogy, a politi...)
(Set in the Ibo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Afric...)
(Chinua Achebe is considered the father of modern African ...)
Although he is strong and brave, indeed "one of the greatest men of his time, " Okonkwo obsessively pursues success, respectability, and dignity to counter his father's failure in life.