There Was a Country

From the legendary author of Things Fall Apartcomes a longawaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil warThe defining experience of Chinua Achebe s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967 1970 The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world renowned novelist, with a young family to protect He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war s full horror Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it He begins his story with Nigeria s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people.Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age. Free Read Books There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe – kino-fada.fr When I first read Chinua Achebe at age 11 Things Fall Apart , he was one of the few African writers I d read growing up As an African I often wondered why there weren t too many books about Africa written by Africans Things are changing now but when I was growing up that wasn t the case.As such, Achebe holds a special place in my heart.I was really excited to read this autobiography and I wasn t disappointed In the first part, Achebe talked about his childhood, pre Independence Nigeria, and When I first read Chinua Achebe at age 11 Things Fall Apart , he was one of the few African writers I d read growing up As an African I often wondered why there weren t too many books about Africa written by Africans Things are changing now but when I was growing up that wasn t the case.As such, Achebe holds a special place in my heart.I was really excited to read this autobiography and I wasn t disappointed In the first part, Achebe talked about his childhood, pre Independence Nigeria, and the great education...I wonder if we will ever be able to read Chinua Achebe without feeling the pain of his current relevance and impact This is an incredibly touching and personal account of a traumatising civil war in Nigeria Biafra in the 1960s I admire Chinua Achebe s Things Fall Apart and its sequels, and this narrative is a good complement to his thought provoking fiction It offers an overview of the political situation that led to the Biafran War, tells the story of his own family s perspective and his ef I wonder if we will ever be able to read Chinua Achebe without feeling the pain of his current relevance and impact This is an incredibly touching and personal account of a traumatising civil war in Nigeria Biafra in the 1960s I admire Chinua Achebe s Things Fall Apart and its sequels, and this narrative is a good complement to his thought provoking fiction It offers an overview of the politi...There was a country it was called Biafra This country existed for three years, until 1970 when it fell, claimingthan three million lives Forced to flee a section of Nigeria, Chinua Achebe was a citizen, pioneer, even one of the writers of the constitution for that country This is his experience as a Biafran So with such a traumatic personal experience, why would this book be published to controversy The tone could have had something to do with it Achebe rearranged literature for m There was a country it was called Biafra This country existed for three years, until 1970 when it fell, claimingthan three million lives Forced to flee a section of Nigeria, Chinua Achebe was a citizen, pioneer, even one...Extremely jaundiced review of the causes and events that led up to the Nigerian civil war Chinua Achebe s main theme is that the thinking and actions of the different Nigerian governments were based on the quest for tribal supremacy for the dominant tribes Unfortunately, he falls prey to this himself He appears to have bought into the self serving fiction that all the wrongs that led to the attempted secession in 1967 70 were predicated and wrought purely by the rest of Nigeria He would have Extremely jaundiced review of the causes and events that led up to the Nigerian civil war Chinua Achebe s main theme is that the thinking and actions of the different Nigerian governments were based on the quest for tribal supremacy for the dominant tribes Unfortunately, he falls prey to this himself He appears to have bought into the self serving fiction that all the wrongs that led to the attempted secession in 1967 70 were predicated and wrought purely by the rest of Nigeria He wou...A profoundly important document from one of the world s greatest writers Here, Professor Achebe is addressing his readership not solely as a novelist, critic, children s author and poet, but as a statesman The book is broken into four parts something the writer Obi Nwakanma has cleverly observed also corresponds to the four market days in the Igbo week and may have provided the super structure for Achebe world view It seems to me that the insertion of poems in the story is also a throw back A profoundly import...Biafran Nigeria war ended forty three years ago The war was fought between 1967 and 1970 The ethnic religious cleansing or genocide against the Igbo that necessitated the war took place from 1966 to July 1967 when the actual war began Chinua Achebe in his characteristic sincere and honest narration clearly stated in this long awaited book that it is because there was genocide against the Igbo people then there became a country Biafra It must have been extremely difficult on Achebe to maint Biafran Nigeria war ended forty three years ago The war was fought between 1967 and 1970 The ethnic religious cleansing or genocide against the Igbo that necessitated the war took place from 1966 to July 1967 when the actual war began Chinua Achebe in his characteristic sincere and honest narration clearly stated in this long awaited book that it is because there was genocide against the Igbo people then there became a country Biafra It must have been extremely difficult on Achebe to maintain a balanced position since he was personally involved on the Biafran side but because he is an expert, he succeeded in writing an objective account of what happened Because Achebe s There Was A Country is written so lucidly and honestly it should be taught in schools for the benefit of generations who did not witness the war.Achebe in very ...This book was written by one of the best Authors from Africa and it was about the Nigeria civil war,I read and reread it immediately it was published and it was an interesting read.Chinua Achebe is one of Africa s greatest novelists, his books superb at capturing the complex transition to independence in the continent and the social changes associated with this shift Now, at 82, he has written a retrospective non fiction book about the bitter struggle to build a separate Biafra in eastern Nigeria and his own personal role in that tragic experience There Was a Country is a good book, well worth reading, deeply felt in its telling, and powerful in its treatment of the gri Chinua Achebe is one of Africa s greatest novelists, his books super...definitely not objective but that s not what the purpose of this book was i wouldn t have read it if it were just objective i wanted to read his take on things and he gave it that s all i ll say because i m not in the mood to start a fire storm the ghost of biafra haunts every nigerian people still can t talk about it all in a calm fashion i am igbo and i have a biafran pound framed on my bookcase my family was VERY affected by the biafran war and the argument it caused when my yoruba f definitely not objective but that s not what the purpose of this book was i wouldn t have read it if it were just objective i wanted to read his take on things and he gave it that s all i ll say because...Writing my final year thesis on The Nigerian Civil War Literature, focusing on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie s Half of a Yellow Sun and Isidore Okpewho s The Last Duty exposed me to some elements of the Biafran war I did not know My father and my grandmother always told me stories about the conflict, which saw over 2,000,000 people dead However, I was not fortunate to hear my grandfather s side of the story he was long dead before I was born.Now Achebe is back with an extremely important document Writing my final year thesis on The Nigerian Civil War L...

• English
• 26 February 2017
Chinua Achebe
• Hardcover
• 352 pages
• 1594204829
• Chinua Achebe
• There Was a Country