The prize-winning 81-year-old Nigerian author and academic, Prof Chinua Achebe has released his long-awaited memoir, ‘There Was a Country’ in the United Kingdom yesterday.
After being silent about his Biafran war experience, the much anticipated work describes the brutal three-year Biafran war, in which he acted as roving cultural ambassador for the Biafran Republic when the south-eastern area tried to split from Nigeria in 1967.
As one of Africa’s best known authors, Mr Achebe’s debut 1958 novel ‘Things Fall Apart’ has sold more than 10 million copies and published in numerous languages all over the world. In all of his writings until now, he has never addressed the details of his experience during the Biafran war, in which he was caught up with his young family – except occasionally in his poetry.
“There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid observation and considered research and reflection,” Mr Achebe’s UK publisher Allen Lane says. It relates Nigeria’s birth pangs in the context of Achebe’s own development as a man and a writer, and examines the role of the artist in times of war”.
Prof Achebe has lived in the US since he suffered a car accident in 1990, which left him paralysed and in a wheelchair.
The memoir is due to be released in Nigeria shortly and in the US on 11 October.
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Scopeman @scopeman60
Unlike everyone else I have not been writing from my mother's womb. I realised my ability to write pretty well along the course of life. I am working hard to improve and establish myself as a writer. My first book "Dappled Things" will soon be out in a book store near you.Go to Scopeman's profile, and read more of his/her posts.
At long last.
My list is waiting.
Hmmmh…i pray the forty three years or so interval between the time the event happened and the time it was finally written and edited will not water down the whole … Am just saying.
This will be another landmark piece from this literary maestro.
The ancestors ‘is’ here!
I’m waiting to have a feel of this new release.
I think I’d like to read this. Haven’t made up my mind though.
Heh.
Waiting for it here on home soil.