Chinua Achebe's controversial book There Was a County is available at the Garden City Literary Festival Book fair.
Chimamanda Adichie reviews the book:
"His prose, which often has the cadence of spoken Nigerian English in his fiction, is sometimes plainly conversational here. I was reminded of my father, a contemporary of Achebe’s, telling stories of his past, in the circuitous storytelling tradition of the Igbo, each story circling in on itself, revelling in coincidence. I imagine Achebe would tell the stories in this book in much the same way as he writes them, with an elegiac, gentle vagueness, a lack of interest in adhering to hard fact. He ‘came first or second’ in an exam; his wife’s father died ‘in the mid-1980s’. There are many repetitions, schoolfriends are introduced more than once, there are digressions, and he casually uses quaint words like ‘lad’ and ‘serpent’. There is more of what writing teachers call ‘telling’ and less ‘showing’. Sometimes, his stories are fable-like, with the simplicity – and simplifications – of that form. In Nigeria under colonial rule, he could travel from Lagos to the south-east at night without worrying about armed robbers. This, he argues, is because the British managed their colonies well. His simplification is rooted in disappointment. He is a member of Nigeria’s generation of the bewildered, the people who were fortunate to be educated, who were taught to believe in Nigeria, and who watched, helpless and confused, as the country crumbled. He was a Biafran patriot, as were most of his Igbo colleagues, because they no longer felt they belonged in Nigeria. "
"In the middle chapters, memoir gives way to largely neutral historical analysis, with Achebe citing a range of voices, media reports and books. There are interesting insights into the war's two central players: Biafra's leader Ojukwu and Nigerian president, General Yakubu Gowon, both Sandhurst-trained young men. Rivalries between them and within their teams "confounded political science models". Possessing little administrative experience, the two men pursued ego-driven policies, and missed opportunities to end the conflict sooner. Achebe cites Biafran diplomat Raph Uwechue, who accused Ojukwu of choosing ideology over pragmatism when he rejected relief supplies from the British.
In the following chapters, Achebe's personal story re-emerges. Despite the war, he lived a remarkably productive life. Driven by his belief in the political obligations of the writer, he became Biafra's international envoy, promoting the cause in Canada, Europe and Senegal. He set up a publishing company with his close friend Chris Okigbo, and became Biafra's communications minister, writing a manifesto for the republic. He describes being part of an intellectual elite that came together to recreate a Biafran microcosm of Nigeria's early spirit, their ideals drawn from a mix of traditional Igbo philosophy, US-style liberalism and socialism."
"There is an eclectic range of insights and fascinating anecdotes buried in there, but this is not a book that will add much to the understanding of the war, nor one that will go down among Achebe’s great works. Of these there are several, including Things Fall Apart (1958), the bestselling African novel ever and perhaps the finest account of the clash of cultures that occurred when Europeans first penetrated the continent.
Told in four parts, There Was a Country starts with an at times self-satisfied account of Achebe’s upbringing, his academic prowess and the lives of his peers. It conveys the great hope that existed as colonial Africa pushed towards independence, and gives some credit to British efforts to create the institutional and human foundations of the Nigerian state."
The book is available at the Association of Nigerian Authors Book stand, the GCLF Book fair, at the Atlantic Hall, Presidential Hotel, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
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