Things Fall Apart: A Novel

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One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also a man who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.

And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He is fond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent from another village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young woman from Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom he has too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes him.

Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

This is Chinua Achebe's classic novel, with more than two million copies sold since its first U.S. publication in 1969. Combining a richly African story with the author's keen awareness of the qualities common to all humanity, Achebe here shows that he is "gloriously gifted, with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent." -- Nadine Gordimer

Customer Reviews:

True to it's title.......2007-09-22

It is amazing how a novel first published in 1959 about a Nigerian village, pre-colonization, still has relevance today. Talk about transcending time as well as cultures! Chinua Achebe is a magnificent story teller. I love authors who have the ability to transport me to worlds that seem so different from my own.

Okonkwo was a man that was obsessed with masculinity and the "power" of being masculine. Although I could see how harsh, abusive, and unyielding Okonkwo was towards his family, oddly I felt sympathy for the man. He was the product of his environment and culture. Apparently his callousness was worsened because of his fear that he should become like his father ----- a man with no title, in his culture, the equivalent of being a woman.

How many of us struggle to balance the new with the old? And how often do we question or all out resist changing times.... be it attitudes or ideas, advancements in technology, religion, policies, music, etc. Most of us reach a certain age where we would prefer our traditions be left alone. In some instances there should be no room for compromise, but in other instances perhaps there truly is improvement/advancement to be gained.

Okonkwo's struggle is exactly that. He strives to leave behind a proud legacy. However, he makes bad decisions along the way. The more he tries to make things right the more it seems that misfortune comes his way. He's angered and confused about the changes that come upon his village but that combined with his pigheaded demeanor make for a disastrous result. It's a good book to take up beyond school required reading. Achebee gives his readers a great deal to consider.

Things Fall apart audio.......2007-09-11

My son had a senior project to do over the summer, he had to read this entire book and the first day back to school, he had a test on it, my son does not do well on reading, he can read great, but he has trouble remembering what he read, so I thought if he listened to it being read to him, he could follow along better, well he did, and he done well on his test and essay, I would recommend this product to anyone with similiar problems as my son has with reading.......

Things Fall Apart.......2007-09-10

My son needed this book for school and we received in time for school. Great service!

All you never wanted to know about yams... and other such things........2007-08-08

I had to read this for my high school advanced English class. I regret ever having picked it up. I feel very lucky that my brain was not fried after reading The-book-that-should-not-be-named. In short, if you want to read a bizarre book about African people and yams, then read this book. If not, go read something else.

It Drags.......2007-08-07

While the story itself is useful in giving a student the right mindset for African studies, the story itself lacks much of the marvel of other historically-based books. While the book is pointed towards lower-classmen in high school, the true audience should be college, where adults can completely analyze and idnetify the key points and emotions of the story.

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A Literary Classic!!
Powerful characters captured by outstanding writing
Still thinking about this book
compelling read with complex characters
Something of a disappointment - Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie

Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1400044162
Release Date: 2006-09-12

Book Description

A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.

Customer Reviews:

A Literary Classic!!.......2007-10-16

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the newest Nigerian writer in the mould of Chinua Achebe or Nobel Laureate Wole Shoyinka, and much like tham, her writing style is simply outstanding!

"Half of a yellow sun" is her second book, following the critically acclaimed "Purple Hibiscus", and has won the Orange prize for fiction. The book takes its name from the half yellow sun on the Biafran flag.

Filled with vivid prose and wit, and very real, colourful characters: Odenigbo, his girlfriend Olanna, her twin Kainene, her English boyfriend Richard (who becomes Igbo by association), and houseboy Ugwu, it is set in sixties Nigeria, fresh from Independence and still wobbling as she tries to find her feet.

More importantly, it gives one an insight into the suffering, pain, heartache, endured by the Biafrans (the short lived secessionist nation), the scheming of the west, as well as the blissful ignorance of most other Nigerians of the carnage going on in the eastern part of the nation, all this done without pointing any fingers or judging.

This book, though fiction, is an important chronicle of a part of Nigerian history that should never be forgotten, and left me deeply moved. A literary classic!!

Powerful characters captured by outstanding writing.......2007-09-25

It is the late 1960s. In Africa, the small nation of Biafra struggles to establish a republic independent from Nigeria. The world is not paying attention as people are slaughtered, as heroes are born, as classes and ethnic groups clash and fight and flee.

Amidst this backdrop of turmoil, you meet Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old boy just hired as a houseboy by Odenigbo, a university professor and revolutionary. You follow Odenigbo and his girlfriend Olanna as they abandon one house after another, fleeing with Ugwu, trying to stay one step ahead of the front line of the war. You travel with Richard, a young Englishman who considers himself a citizen of this new nation of Biafra, as he navigates the war and pursues Olanna's proud and beautiful twin sister Kainene. You get a glimpse, through these characters, into the chaos and instability that is the daily lives of those affected by war.

Adichie's new novel is ambitious - it manages simultaneously to be both broad in scope and intimate in its details. Her writing is beautiful, and her characters so well fleshed out that you keep thinking about them, wondering what will happen to them, long after the book is done. There is death here, yes, but there is also birth and friendship and lust. There is hunger, but there is also generosity and truth. Adichie does an excellent job portraying the surreal coexistence of the fear and devastation of war with the more mundane, but perhaps even more painful, struggles to maintain some semblance of "normal" life - meals prepared and eaten, school attended, marriages planned and babies conceived.

Adichie's novel is a window into the past, into a place that most of us have never been. The clash and coincidence of the love story and the war epic render Half a Yellow Sun into the kind of fiction that is often more telling, more evocative of a particular point in history, than any strictly historic account could ever be.

Armchair Interviews says: The book makes you feel the characters struggle in a way that only the best fiction can.

Still thinking about this book.......2007-09-17

I won't say much since the other reviewers have nicely listed a synopsis of the book, but what I will say is that I loved this book. It is not often one finds a book where you care very much for the characters and want to know what happens next and can't put it down. The author writes in a way that makes you feel you are there. Those who have lived in Africa will also feel closer to the book and its characters. When I finished this book I cried... and am still thinking about the story. Buy this book, you will not be disappointed.

compelling read with complex characters .......2007-09-16

Africa is undeniably hip right now. Just ask Oprah, Bono, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, among other luminaries, make their annual pilgrimages between the "third" world and the "first" world to remind us of our moral obligation to our long-suffering brothers and sisters in Africa. From the continent has come one of the finest writers I have read in a long time. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus, and her latest masterpiece, Half of a Yellow Sun. In this novel, which won the prestigious Orange prize for literature in the UK, Adichie brings Nigeria in the early '60s to life.

Through the lives of her central characters, we see the political and cultural tensions that were brewing in the years leading up to the Biafran war, a brutal conflict initially started by tribal differences. Thirteen-year old Ugwu is employed as a house boy to a radical University professor, Olanna is the professor's beautiful and privileged girlfriend who has eschewed her bourgeois life for the brilliant professor. Richard is a shy, insecure Englishman who seeks to rediscover himself in his relationship with Olanna's sister, Kainene, a fierce, mysterious woman who is beholden to no one. Adichie wasn't even born when these events were unfolding, but she heard stories about the war and its aftermath from her parents and other relatives who were swept up in these apocalyptic events that ultimately led to much suffering for Nigeria's people.

Why read this book? Aside from the political and moral questions it raises, it's a compelling read with complex characters who will leave you reflecting on their stories long after you have finished the novel.

Something of a disappointment - Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie.......2007-08-27

It is not often that a novel comes to hand that has been prized, praised and pre-inflated. Half of a Yellow Sun was in that category when I opened it and began to read. And I was captivated immediately. I read the first hundred pages at a pace, delighting in the ease with which the Chimanada Ngozi Adichie used language to draw me into the middle-class clique centred on the University of Nkussa which provides the core characters of her book. Their infidelities, their inconsistencies, their desire, despite the servants, for equality and freedom are symptomatic of their time. The dissimilar twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, one imagines will provide a vehicle for parallel and different lives, providing contrast and metaphor, and I eagerly awaited their stories to unfold.

The book's sections alternate between the early and late 1960s, the latter period in Nigeria, of course, being the Biafran War. And, yes, the characters live through the war, and their lives and their natures, and along with them their country, are transformed by it. Perhaps even their own identity is redrawn, especially once the promise of a recognised nationality is promised and then denied. Eventually there are vivid scenes of the war's brutality, its double standards, its compromises, its cynicism, its racism and its starvation. The images are graphic and vivid, unforgettable even, and the ability of war to undermine utterly and profoundly any assumption that an individual might harbour about an imagined future is movingly portrayed.

So why then was I so disappointed with the book? All I can offer, I'm afraid, is that eventually I found it shallow. Its apparent concentration on the domestic lives of the characters undermined their credibility as members of an intellectual elite and rendered them two (or perhaps even one) dimensional. Chimanada Ngozi Adichie carefully tells us that Odenigbo is a mathematician and in love with his subject. He covets his personal library, which he loses in the war and then has replaced by a benefactor. But in my experience, mathematicians are passionate people - and are usually passionate about mathematics. No mathematician I have ever met avoids all mention of personal academic interests in social settings as scrupulously as Odenigbo. I didn't want the novel to become a textbook, but if characters were ballet dancers, surely we would expect to hear of the roles they had danced and the music that had moved them. Of Odenigbo's academic character we hear nothing. Why is he therefore endowed with knowledge and interest that is never explored? Perhaps he only exists as a character to interact with the twin sisters.

And the problem is repeated with Richard Churchill who, we are told is an Igbo-speaking English radical. I knew a lot of sixties radicals and they were never slow to offer an opinion or, indeed, place themselves squarely in a space on the ideological chessboard. In Half of a Yellow Sun, we never learn if Richard is a Marxist, Maoist, Leninist or Trot. He never mentions Castro or Ho Chi Minh. He doesn't appear to have any position on capitalism, society, business, the Third World, South Africa, Central America or even Viet Nam. I found myself wondering which sixties decade saw his radicalisation. When Chimanada Ngozi Adichie tells us that he travels to Lagos to attend a function in honour of the state funeral of Winston Churchill (perhaps no relation), I began to wonder if he was an early- (or indeed late) born radical Tory. I have been an expatriate myself, so I can forgive him his attendance of the function, but not his total silence on the issues of the day.

This becomes especially problematic when both Britain and the Soviet Union are mentioned as assisting the Federal Forces in the destruction of secessionist Biafra. What sixties radical, given the inevitability of his assumption of a Cold War bifurcated paradigm to underpin his ideological position, would not have pondered and discussed this at length, even in bed?

Eventually we also have to read along with continued adulation of Ojukwu. His Excellency might even be the Great Helmsman, himself, given that his free-thinking minions seem unable to mention a criticism of an historical character who eventually fled to Ivory Coast to save his skin and live his life in relative comfort after leaving millions of his own people dead. Perhaps he had to be preserved to fight another day, as he eventually did, if in a different way, but surely no sixties radical would have left his role unquestioned. It doesn't ring true, and an opportunity to develop a character like Richard through his own and inevitable disillusion was ignored.

And then we are presented with a pair of American journalists that the radical Richard has to greet and service in his role as a promoter of the Biafran cause. They are both called Charles and apparently have the same nickname, Chuck - which surely should have been Charlie of the "right" variety to enhance the farce. They are simply not credible. We can probably accept as deadly accurate that the majority of Americans neither knew where Biafra was nor cared a jot about its plight, since the attentions of the politicised were focused elsewhere at the time. But the presentation of a pair of foreign correspondents as crass as these is surely incredible, as is, equally, Richard's apparent patience in dealing with them.

I did also become mildly annoyed at what became quite extensive use of Igbo words when they seemed to offer no extra flavour, meaning or understanding. I have no problem with the use of local terms top enhance a felling of place and sound, but their over use tends to obfuscate. We really wanted to know what these people thought, but we were never told.

So what are we left with? Half of a Yellow Sun is a beautifully written, beautifully composed domestic tale of fidelity, infidelity, loyalty and opportunism. The contrast between the characters' and therefore the nation's lives at the start and the end of the decade is engaging. But because their psyches are never really explored, we never understand any motives or, therefore, any consequences. Reading Half of a Yellow Sun was a thoroughly enjoyable experience which, with hindsight, I would have foregone.

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Lagos: How It Works
Rem Koolhaas
Manufacturer: Lars Müller Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3037780851

Book Description

Lagos: How it Works is the result of more than eight years of research in Lagos, Nigeria. As a symbol of West African urbanism, Lagos contradicts almost every defining feature of the "modernâ€ city. And yet itâ€™s a city that works. In over five hundred pages, this mega-book documents the changing mega-city with essays, illustrations, maps, diagrams, rumors, interviews, images, and anecdotes. It follows the development of Lagos from a small-scale, traditional settlement on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea in 1800 into one of the largest megacities in the world today. With an emphasis on modernity, infrastructure, and the role of oil and town planners in the 1970s, it observes the effects that globalization has had on the cityâ€™s identity, from its position on the cutting edge of African modernity through its dramatic decline during the oil crisis until today.

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Good Book
Heartwarming Childhood Memoir
An engrossing read
Excellent, if a bit confusing
A Densely Written, Deeply Evocative Memoir of Childhood

Ake: The Years of Childhood
Wole Soyinka
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679725407
Release Date: 1989-10-23

Amazon.com

When he was 4 years old, spurred by insatiable curiosity and the beat of a marching drum, Wole Soyinka slipped silently through the gate of his parents' yard and followed a police band to a distant village. This was his first journey beyond Aké, Nigeria, and reading his account is akin to witnessing a child's epiphany:

The parsonage wall had vanished forever but it no longer mattered. Those token bits and pieces of Aké which had entered our home on occasions, or which gave off hints of their nature in those Sunday encounters at church, were beginning to emerge in their proper shapes and sizes.

He returned, perched upon the handlebars of a policeman's bicycle, "markedly different from whatever I was before the march." The reader's horizons feel similarly expanded after finishing this astonishing book.

Nobel laureate Soyinka is a prolific playwright, poet, novelist, and critic, but seems to have found his purest voice as an autobiographer. Aké: The Years of Childhood is a memoir of stunning beauty, humor, and perception--a lyrical account of one boy's attempt to grasp the often irrational and hypocritical world of adults that equally repels and seduces him. Soyinka elevates brief anecdotes into history lessons, conversations into morality plays, memories into awakenings. Various cultures, religions, and languages mingled freely in the Aké of his youth, fostering endless contradictions and personalized hybrids, particularly when it comes to religion. Christian teachings, the wisdom of the ogboni, or ruling elders, and the power of ancestral spirits--who alternately terrify and inspire him--all carried equal metaphysical weight. Surrounded by such a collage, he notes that "God had a habit of either not answering one's prayers at all, or answering them in a way that was not straightforward."

In writing from a child's perspective, Soyinka expresses youthful idealism and unfiltered honesty while escaping the adult snares of cynicism and intolerance. His stinging indictment of colonialism takes on added power owing to the elegance of his attack. He also spears Nigeria's increasing Westernization, its movement toward modernity and materialism, as he describes his beloved village markets deteriorating from a "procession of magicians" to rows of "fantasy stores lit by neon and batteries of coloured bulbs" where the "blare of motor-horns compete with a high-decibel outpouring of rock and funk and punk and other thunk-thunk from lands of instant-culture heroes."

The book closes with an 11-year-old Soyinka preparing to enroll in a government college, declaring it "time to commence the mental shifts for admittance to yet another irrational world of adults and their discipline." Aké is an eloquent testament to the wisdom of youth. --Shawn Carkonen

Customer Reviews:

Good Book.......2007-01-12

The novel is quite good, however certain words and phrases do not add much meaning to the trend of what is going on; they are superflous. On the whole it it a good novel.

Heartwarming Childhood Memoir.......2005-04-21

I love African literature. It's beautiful and it's brilliant and not enough people are familiar with it (yet: I'm optimistic. There's tons of it out there and the many books I've read were great and well-received, so someday it'll catch on. It's scary how little people know about it: I meet people surprised that there even IS an African literature!!!). However, anyone who has read a lot of it knows that much of it is rather sad, which is to be expected considering much of Africa's colonial and post-colonial history.

However...THIS BOOK IS NOT SAD. It's filled with all the vitality, love, and humor of life itself.

Ake: The Years of Childhood is a hilarious, uproarious, touching story of the precocious young Wole (now a Nobel laureate in literature, deservedly so). Now, I don't often find books difficult but this book is a bit verbose at times but you have to stick with it because it's worth it. You will be rolling with laughter at Wole's adventures and you will grow to love his family.

Although most of the book is a joyous and humorous personal account of a Nigerian boy who grows up the son of the school principle around WWII, in an intelligent, colorful, and loving family, the ending of the book has some very interesting accounts of the Soyinka family's friendship with the Ransome-Kuti family (which produced the famous African musician Fela Kuti).

As part of the educated Yoruba elite in Africa, Wole's mother was friends with Kuti's mother and together they educated women, stood up to the colonists (in some of the best scenes in the book) and fought for female emancipation. This may come to a shock to those who know Fela Kuti's cultivated machismo, but these strong women are celebrated and assisted by the men in the village. African women had a unique position under colonialism in that they could stand up to colonial officials in a way African men could not have-British men (not always, but often) preferred not to use violence against women and saw that as part of their gentlemanly identity. Therefore, when

Mrs. Ransome-Kuti tells a colonial official who has ill treated her that "you were born but you were not bred" it is one of the most powerful moments in the book.

I can't recommend this book any more highly. Go get it right away! I promise you you won't regret it. This is the kind of book that makes you realize the power of reading: the power to open up a new world, a new culture, and feel you are part of it; the power to laugh along with the characters, to spend a few hours of your life delighted. It's an experience more than a book.

An engrossing read.......2003-07-28

Wole Soyinka takes us back to his childhood in colonial Nigeria and shares with us his experiences and thoughts on growing up Yoruba. The book is written for the most part from the perspective of the young Soyinka and hence is void of any criticism of events as they unfolded. For example, the stoning of the "pregnant mad woman" was related to us without any reasoning behind such behavior. I was disturbed that such a thing was allowed to happen without anyone opposing it.

He gives rich descriptions of the Nigerian ceremonies that took place during his youth, and of the conflict between Christian and traditional Nigerian beliefs. It is my belief that these experiences during Soyinka's youth were instrumental in forming his future (now current) perceptions of the World and Nigeria in particular. This makes the book extremely revealing as we are allowed to view the process of development that went on in the mind of the young Soyinka.

Read this book to be entertained, by its splatterings of humorous anecdotes and Yoruba wit. Read it to understand the background of Soyinka and of those of his kind. Finally read it because it is another of those great biographies of great men.

Excellent, if a bit confusing.......2001-07-07

This is a wonderful portrayal of both time and place, written through the eyes of the artist as a child. The descriptions are vivid and generally entertaining, once you get past the style of the author. He presents the story in a disjointed flow of events or images, and not until you realize that this is how childhood memory usually flows can you let yourself be swept into the current.

In the early chapters, the flow is nearly stream of consciousness, but there is a cohesion that comes as each chapter nears its end. Then the next chapter does it again. Later in the book, he seems to juxtapose time, going from present (with MacDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken lining the old main street ) to past, and describing the culture and society that these newcomers have replaced.

All in all, the quality of Wole Soyinka's storytelling held me against the confusion that his timelines created. Wonderful reading if you have the gumption not to have your literature spoon fed.

A Densely Written, Deeply Evocative Memoir of Childhood.......2000-09-13

There is a wonderful chapter in Wole Soyinka's "Ake: The Years of Childhood" which can be read as an extended metaphor for growing up or, more specifically, growing up in a small town in western Nigeria and becoming a world-recognized author and Nobel Prize winner. In that chapter Soyinka relates the story of how his older brother first hoisted the then four year old boy up on his shoulders so he could see over the wall, see outside the school compound, where he lived. This glimpse of the outside world fascinated the inquisitive young boy, so much so that the next time he heard a commotion outside the walls-a police band marching by-he ran to the gate, only to find it latched. As Soyinka relates: "Then I heard excited voices on the outside, obviously there were others before me who had the same idea. I banged on the gate and someone opened it."

It was an epiphany for the young boy, leaving the safe confines of the compound for the fascinations of the outside world. Soyinka clearly was enchanted by what he saw and experienced, following the band for many miles, to the next town, where he suddenly found himself alone. "The ragged, motley group of children who had followed, clowning, mimicking, even calling out orders had fallen off one by one. It occurred to me now that I had seen no one nor heard any of their festive voices for a while. They had all vanished, leaving no one but me."

Just as Wole, the little boy, plunged into the outside world only to find himself alone at the end, so has the mature Soyinka, the brilliant author of this densely written, deeply evocative childhood memoir, written himself into a singular position as Nigeria's leading and, perhaps most courageous, literary figure.

"Ake: The Years of Childhood" is not an easy book to read. Soyinka's prose is rich and detailed, his style at times elliptical, requiring the reader's careful attention. But the effort is certainly worth it, for Soyinka warmly and affectionately details not only his own memories and experiences from the age of four to eleven, but strikingly captures the universal feelings, sensations, and perceptions of childhood itself. Soyinka takes the particularity of growing up in a culture where traditional folklore, magic and superstition mix with Western Christianity, education and invention, where Yoruba is spoken along with English, where cultural and experiential references are polyglot, and he sees this particularity through the eyes of a child. By doing this, Soyinka brilliantly depicts not only his own experience of growing up in Nigeria during the late 1930s and 1940s, but also the experience of just plain growing up. It doesn't matter whether you know anything or nothing about Wole Soyinka or Nigeria to appreciate this marvelous memoir; it only matters that you have an inquisitive mind that wants to enter an even more inquisitive mind, the mind of a child.

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To Read

A beautiful story

"The Ghosts of Post-Colonial Africa"

Never have so many words said so little

The Famished Road -- myth informing the facts.

The Famished Road
Ben Okri
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

The Bone People: A Novel

Nervous Conditions

Half of a Yellow Sun

In Arcadia

ASIN: 0385425139
Release Date: 1993-05-01

Amazon.com

You have never read a novel like this one. Winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for fiction, The Famished Road tells the story of Azaro, a spirit-child. Though spirit-children rarely stay long in the painful world of the living, when Azaro is born he chooses to fight death: "I wanted," he says, "to make happy the bruised face of the woman who would become my mother." Survival in his chaotic African village is a struggle, though. Azaro and his family must contend with hunger, disease, and violence, as well as the boy's spirit-companions, who are constantly trying to trick him back into their world. Okri fills his tale with unforgettable images and characters: the bereaved policeman and his wife, who try to adopt Azaro and dress him in their dead son's clothes; the photographer who documents life in the village and displays his pictures in a cabinet by the roadside; Madame Koto, "plump as a mighty fruit," who runs the local bar; the King of the Road, who gets hungrier the more he eats.

At the heart of this hypnotic novel are the mysteries of love and human survival. "It is more difficult to love than to die," says Azaro's father, and indeed, it is love that brings real sharpness to suffering here. As the story moves toward its climax, Azaro must face the consequences of choosing to live, of choosing to walk the road of hunger rather than return to the benign land of spirits. The Famished Road is worth reading for its last line alone, which must be one of the most devastating endings in contemporary literature (but don't skip ahead). --R. Ellis

Book Description

In the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri's Famished Road has become a classic. Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it combines brilliant narrative technique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature.

The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute. The tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits propels this latter-day Lazarus's story.

Customer Reviews:

To Read.......2007-08-31

I came across Okri's 'The Famished Road' in a used bookstore, in Sydney. I decided to do what I used to when I was a kid, and had no knowledge of literary genres or authors- I picked books at random until I found one that looked interesting.
I know a book is good when it completely removes me from reality, pulls me in as if I'm watching inside the book, and alters my perspective when I set it down. When the father becomes a boxer in this novel, I found myself hunched over, practically yelling as if I was in the crowd.
This is a wonderful book, that leaves questions suspended in the air above you long after you set it down. Do yourself a favor, and buy it.

A beautiful story.......2007-05-12

A beautiful story. An African version of Magical Realism but still quite different.

"The Ghosts of Post-Colonial Africa".......2007-04-05

Spirits abound in Ben Okri's FAMISHED ROAD. Azaro, a young boy growing up in an unnamed African country enduring the throes of its pending independence, sees spirit forms all around him. Azaro lives in the interspaces between the living and the dead, which makes him prone to the attacks of supernatural creatures and the dark machinations of witches and necromancers. Okri provides such detailed depictions of Azaro's out of body experiences, relating them with so much hallucinogenic clarity and intensity that unwary readers will find certain passages disorienting. Heady, trippy stuff but well worth the expenditure of time and concentration. Magical realism at its very best.
(Winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for Literature)

Never have so many words said so little.......2006-12-28

Like one or two other reviewers here, I got more than half of the way through this book but eventually had to chuck it aside in frustration. I *wanted* to like it so much, but its plot (even using the word "plot" is being rather generous) is so circular, monotonous, and repetitive, that I just didn't feel I was getting anywhere. A very frustrating reading process. I pressed on for a long time, hoping the book was actually going somewhere -- and maybe it would have done had I persisted, but it's hard to imagine how or when or that it could have been worth the effort. So, even though some of Okri's language and imagery was remarkable, it just wasn't worth enduring the other 95% of the book. Maddening!

The Famished Road -- myth informing the facts........2006-09-13

Ben Okri's The Famished Road -- unbelievable -- stacked with arresting imagery, action, and thought -- heartbreaking -- so heartbreaking -- so full of terror and joy -- all that feeds us and satiates and leaves us reeling in agony. I can't put it down. I've been reading it during my prep and lunch -- and at night -- it's stealing away my neccessary teaching duties -- leaving me thankful -- reminding me of why i read -- it has taken over my morning blurbs about reading -- for a former anthropology goon -- it's a vast experience.......the work of a beautiful monster....-- and what a protagonist! -- The most life-affirming book I've wrestled with in a long time. There's nothing magical about this -- myth is doing what it should be doing in this book -- expressing the universal condition of human existence -- this is story not doctrine -- myth informing the facts -- and maybe most importantly -- enlarging our views of what it means to be human.

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timeless
A Man of the People
Perhaps Achebe's Best
CLASSIC ACHEBE, DEEP CHARACTER WITH DOUBTS AND DILEMMAS
Sleaze, Jealousy, Politics

A Man of the People
Chinua Achebe
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385086164
Release Date: 1988-12-19

Book Description

By the renowned author of Things Fall Apart, this novel foreshadows the Nigerian coups of 1966 and shows the color and vivacity as well as the violence and corruption of a society making its own way between the two worlds.

Customer Reviews:

timeless.......2007-05-14

very fascinating to read how the writer has captured situations forty years ago that are still so accurate today.

A Man of the People.......2006-02-05

"A Man of the People" is another excellent and moving book by the world renowned Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe. His other classic books include: "Things Fall Apart" and "No Longer at Ease".

Chinua Achebe is a gifted story teller. From his writings, one can picture life in his native country and particularly of his Ibo clan. In "A Man of the People", Achebe depicts the life of a post-colonial African politician, who is part of the new elite that has replaced the former colonial masters. Just like the pigs in "Animal Farm by George Orwell", these political elite create a good life for themselves at the expense of the masses, the ordinary folk.

Achebe points out some of the cancer that has infected post colonial Africa of corruption, violence and unbridled greed, which created untold suffering and despair following the initial euphoria, high expectations and optimism that greeted independence. Achebe develops the story in a powerful, humorous, witty and masterful way that clearly shows why he is one of the greatest novelists to have graced the African continent. He is one of my favourite writers.

I recommend his collection of books to anyone who wishes to understand developments on the African continent as well as the high quality of African literature. The books ought to be mandatory reading for the English literature curriculum for schools and colleges in Africa.

Perhaps Achebe's Best.......2005-05-06

I loved "Things Fall Apart", and it was what got me to fall in love with African literature in the first place-and download a list of Africa's 100 greatest works of literature in order to try to feed my passion! (I'm not sure how far into it I am now!) It is a masterpiece and so moving.

However, I have to admit there is something so perfect about "A Man of the People", so witty, so well-written, so perfect, so flawless, that it might be better than "Things Fall Apart". Since this book takes place during the post-colonial period, it has a completely different tone than Things Fall Apart. For one thing, it uses a smattering of pidgin (a Nigerian combination of indigenous words, English and slang), which is hard to understand for outsiders to the culture but fascinating-only a little is used and doesn't at all detract from understanding the novel if you're not a native speaker, and it adds a lot of flavor.

Achebe's masterful writing and talent at crafting stories-saying more with subtlety than many have said with bombast- is what makes this book worth reading if you're not interested in Africa in particular. If you are interested in Africa, this is an important exploration of the post-colonial situation. The narrator, part of the educated elite, becomes enamored of the so-called "Man of the People", a man who embodies a Nigerian postcolonial political leader of a certain kind-always ready to take a bribe, charming, populist, and utterly corrupt.

At first the narrator is intrigued by the Man of the People, and admires his style. The realization of what men like this are doing to his country forces the narrator to realize what is at stake when the nation allows itself to accept thievery as a cultural value. Although he is initially immature and moved to vengeance because the "Man of the People" beds his girl, he rapidly matures and comes to identify with his idealist friends, a couple who have not abandoned their optimism and compassion for the people.

A Must-Read, and one of my favorite books of all time.

CLASSIC ACHEBE, DEEP CHARACTER WITH DOUBTS AND DILEMMAS.......2004-10-06

Achebe is a master in portraying Nigerian society in transition, amid corruption, violence and the excitement of development. In this novel, Achebe portrays a schoolteachers that is first welcomed into a politician's home, then gets angered by him when the politician "steals" his girlfriend. The novel unfolds as the schoolteacher (Odili) enters politics as a way to avenge his poor fate with his girlfriend.

As with any Achebe novel, we are introduced in a developing society, still in the excitement of self rule after the British, but struggling to get set on a path towards development. Achebe is very ironic at time, and I think this novel especially shows his wry sense of humor. For example, the Minister of Culture is a rather cultureless man, put in that position through connections and bribery.

Overall, I recommend this book if you enjoyed Achebe's previous work (Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease are my favorites). At only 150 pages, it is the shortest by him that I have read, which makes it even more worth it. Would not recommend as your first Achebe.

Sleaze, Jealousy, Politics.......2003-11-26

This novel tells the story of a hapless schoolteacher who enters politics seeking personal revenge after his girlfriend is seduced by a sleazy politician. The book has wry humor, deftly-drawn characters, and a knowing, nuanced view of "ground reality" politics in Africa. It isn't Dostoevesky but it makes the reader laugh and think -- and it's only 149 pages!

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The Trouble with Nigeria
No Longer At Ease
A Sensitive, Complex Novel
A Modern Africa
OUTSTANDING SEQUEL, VERY SENSITIVE INSIGHTS

No Longer at Ease
Chinua Achebe
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385474555
Release Date: 1994-09-16

Book Description

The story of a man whose foreign education has separated him from his African roots and made him parts of a ruling elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. More than thirty years after it was first written, this novel remains a brilliant statement on the challenges still facing African society.

Customer Reviews:

The Trouble with Nigeria.......2007-09-09

Although considered a sequel to "Things Fall Apart," "No Longer at Ease" stands on its own and does not require that you read Achebe's more famous work (assuming you've somehow made it through school and managed to escape its ubiquity). It's probably more accurate to say that "No Longer at Ease" is a retelling set in modern Nigeria, and it is as great as--perhaps better than--his earlier work.

Obi Okonkwo is the grandson of Okonkwo, the central character in "Things Fall Apart" (and, other than thematic similarities, this is the only direct link between the two books). With the assistance of fellow villagers who had "made it" in the larger world, Obi leaves home for schooling in England and returns to a civil service job in the colonial administration of Nigeria. Because he is one of the select representatives of his village to receive such treatment, expectations are high: he is to live like a member of his class, entertain like a prince, and pay back his educational expenses. He also finds out quickly that his position on the Scholarship Board, recommending prospective students, is a magnet for bribery.

Here, Achebe forsakes the quasi-mythical storytelling tone of "Things Fall Apart" in favor of a more realist style--and this novel, I think, is both stronger and more accessible as a result. In both works, though, Achebe examines how native culture and tradition come into conflict with Western conventions and materialism. Not only is Obi is torn between the often contradictory demands of success and politesse, but he must also face the patronizing racism of his white superiors and the "backward" conventions of his own people. He falls in love with a woman, only to find her spurned by his people because she is "osu"--an outcast. "It was scandalous," Obi thinks, " that in the middle of the twentieth century a man could be barred from marrying a girl simply because her great-great-great-great-grandfather had been dedicated to serve a god, thereby setting himself apart and turning his descendents into a forbidden caste to the end of the Time."

Unable to satisfy either his family and friends or his British overlords, Obi is headed for the nearly preordained downfall that opens the book. It's a tragedy that underscores all of Achebe's works, which critically examine both Western attitudes toward Africa and the corruption in his native homeland. (The title of this review, in fact, is appropriated from one of Achebe's nonfiction works.) It is not modernization per se to which Achebe objects (after all, he now lives in the United States), but the racism and marginalization that accompanied and have superseded imperialism and that created unreasonable expectations for Nigerians. Through the prism of fiction, "Things Fall Apart" represents powerfully the paradoxes of African life in a Western world.

No Longer At Ease .......2006-07-03

After writing "Things Fall Apart", Achebe again comes to us with a masterpiece sequel tiled "No Longer At Ease". This book depicts Obi Okonkwo, the grandson of the Okonkwo in the former. He is an honorable character who comes to a tragic end because of the corruption going on around him, this book also depicts the assimilation that the Nigerians go through and their identity shaken with waves and waves of European influence. A book more concerned over the social issues that the Nigerians at the time felt for their time. This is also shown in Africa today, where corruption run rampant and those in power care nothing about those without power. A powerful novel indeed.

A Sensitive, Complex Novel.......2005-06-24

The title of Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease suggests the possibility of a time when there was "ease." The struggles of the protagonist, Obi Okonkwo, a twenty-six year old Umuofian educated in the British Colonial system and at the university in Great Britain, are analogous to the struggles facing Nigerian society during the period at the end of colonization. Obi must manage the complexities occasioned by his position as a senior civil servant in the British colonial administration in Lagos and his "taboo" love for Clara, a nurse educated in Britain and an osu, a woman banned from marriage by tribal traditions.

While working on his English B.A. and living in Britain on a 800 pound sterling investment of his tribe, the Umuofian Union, Obi celebrates his country in a poem, entitled "Nigeria." He writes, "How sweet it is to lie beneath a tree / At eventime and share the ecstasy / Of jocund birds and flimsy butterflies" (19). No Longer at Ease depicts the complicated picture of Nigeria that Obi finds after four years study abroad.

The novel portrays the interactions of diverse, layered communities in pre-Independence Nigeria in the late 1950s. Achebe describes rural tribal societies, such Umuofia, in contrast to the urban elite of Lagos. He examines the coexistence of traditional tribal religious practices with the Christianity practiced by first and second generation Christian converts. Obi's father, Isaac Okonkwo is a first generation Umuofian convert to Christianity. The son of Okonkwo, the great yet tragic tribal leader of Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1959), Isaac converts to Christianity and later rejects his dying father with the statement: "Those who live by the sword die by the sword." Furthermore, in characterizations of Mr. Green, an English administrator in the colonial government, and Justice William Galloway, an English colonial judge, neither of whom can "comprehend" Obi, Achebe presents the myopia and racism underlying British colonial rule.

No Longer at Ease is a sensitive novel that presents a broad view of humanity. Achebe deals frankly with a number of controversial topics, including sexuality, racism, and corruption. Obi finds himself at the intersection of a number of competing allegiances pulling him in contradictory directions. Obi's poem, "Nigeria," quoted in various parts throughout the novel, embodies the hopes for Nigeria that the novel, in its unflinching realism, ultimately upholds: "God bless our noble countrymen / And women everywhere. / Teach them to walk in unity / To build our nation dear."

A Modern Africa.......2004-05-23

Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease touches upon the chord of discontent and disillusionment prevalent among many foreign-educated Africans returning home. It follows the story of Obi Okonkwo (grandson of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart) as he returns to Nigeria after a British education. As he attempts to break social boundaries and traditions, he is inevitably held back by his relatives, friends, and European co-workers. In desperation, he loses his sense of purpose and becomes one of many bribe-taking officials that he formerly despised, leading to a tragic end.

In many ways, No Longer at Ease reflects upon the problems facing much of Africa today, corruption and tradition conflicting with progress. The western world may condemn their rampant corruption as Obi first did but it is at the bottom of a spiral of other problems.

Chinua Achebe continues to use his characteristically simple style evident in Things Fall Apart for No Longer at Ease. He combines phrases in native languages and uses folk tales to illustrate examples. Unfortunately, the simplicity of the language does not serve to keep the reader's interest completely. At times it feels choppy and almost too simplistic, leaving out details that could serve to further the story. Nevertheless, No Longer at Ease is a remarakble parable of modern Africa.

OUTSTANDING SEQUEL, VERY SENSITIVE INSIGHTS.......2004-05-10

No Longer at Ease, in my opinion, is actually a better book than Things Fall Apart. Achebe does a masterful job of depicting the experience of an ex-patriate returning home after many years abroad. Such experience is universal, not confined to Nigeria or the main character Obi Okonkwo (grandson of the main character in Things Fall Apart).

In adition to the ex-pat experience, Achebe inserts the peculiarly Nigerian experience, in which a group of British still retained some of the leadership positions in civil service while native Nigerians were mostly focused on politics. The moral aspect is also noteworthy, as the widely accepted corruption and favouring done by Nigerians in power was not mirrored by the British.

Aside from the socio-historical aspect of the novel, Achebe is very sensitive in showing the downward spiral of young Obi, as he tries to fight against strong unreasonable traditions (such as with his girlfriend who is of a banished caste). Obi gets enmeshed in a vicious cycle in which he needs to show success, to a point in which his salary can longer sustain his lifestyle, which is forced upon him by expectations.

Amazon.com

In this updated version of a modern classic, acclaimed historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. strikes a blow against radical multiculturalism. The rising cult of ethnicity, he argues, threatens a common American identity, imperiling the civic ideals that traditionally have bonded immigrants into a nation. Various chapters criticize bilingual education, Afrocentrism, and the use of history as group therapy for minorities. Schlesinger raised eyebrows when he first published this book in 1992 because of his impeccable liberal credentials as a one-time assistant to President Kennedy and long-standing academic champion of FDR's New Deal. This new version contains all of the original volume's edge, plus a few extras, including an appendix containing "Schlesinger's Syllabus," 13 books "indispensable to an understanding of America." Titles from this eclectic list include The Federalist Papers, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Mencken's American Language. The Disuniting of America remains an essential book for readers interested in the American character as it enters the 21st century. --John J. Miller

Book Description

The bestseller that reminded us what it means to be an American is more timely than ever in this updated and enlarged edition, including "Schlesinger's Syllabus," an annotated reading list of core books on the American experience. The classic image of the American nation-a melting pot in which differences of race, wealth, religion, and nationality are submerged in democracy-is being replaced by an orthodoxy that celebrates difference and abandons assimilation. While this upsurge in ethnic awareness has had many healthy consequences in a nation shamed by a history of prejudice, the cult of ethnicity, if pressed too far, threatens to fragment American society to a dangerous degree. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner in history and adviser to the Kennedy and other administrations, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., is uniquely positioned to wave the caution flag in the race to a politics of identity. Using a broader canvas in this updated and expanded edition, he examines the international dimension and the lessons of one polyglot country after another tearing itself apart or on the brink of doing so: among them the former Yugoslavia, Nigeria, even Canada. Closer to home, he finds troubling new evidence that multiculturalism gone awry here in the United States threatens to do the same.

Customer Reviews:

More Important Now than Ever!.......2007-05-12

When you think of what befell Rome or
Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
this book brings it all together and
is a MUST READ to understand what
is happening the American Melting Pot!

striving for fairness.......2007-05-03

The most prominent feature of this book, last revised in 1998, is the fact that the author bends over backward to find something complimentary to say about the ideology that has gripped America for the last few decades. This in itself is quite a challenge, and Schlesinger often gives the impression that he is straining to find some way to make the various slogans of this new dogma seem defensible.

The author's main interest is history, and a great part of the book is on the dismantling of history that has occurred in the last thirty years. The kid gloves treatment of what without exaggeration can easily be called a cultural atrocity, will make some readers impatient. Does he really think that these people are going to read his book? Does he really think that, even if they DO read his book, that their opinions are going to be altered to even a slight degree?

If he does think this, then he does not really understand the full seriousness of the new American mind-set. For a thorough study of this new ideology, see While America Sleeps: How Islam, Immigration and Indoctrination are Destroying America from Within. This book is fair, but it does not attempt to make excuses for what is going on. I really do not think that Schlesinger understood the full seriousness of what is going on. He has spent his life among reasonable and well-informed people.

Looking back at the United America.......2006-11-08

Today Mr. Schlesinger appears to be a conservative vs. the liberal he actually was when writing the book.

For people over 50, you will recognize America as it was. For younger folks, this will give you an idea of the very rapid changes this country has experienced.

The country was at one time like a rich stew, and now has become a bunch of individual plates of foods or ingredients that don't even want to touch each other. Each ingredient yells out how important it is, and not realizing that carrots alone, wonderful as they may be, have not reached the potential they can when mixed with potatoes, meat, tomatoes, spices and lovingly blended into that rich stew.

Hopefully people will read and understand that the individual ethnic groups need recognition. But, they need to be Americans first, and their ethnic background as second. For example, American-Asian instead of
Asian-American. The ethnocentricism is tearing the country apart, weakening us to invasions of many types.

This book brings these ideas to mind and will make you think and reflect.

It's Tribalism Stupid.......2006-09-01

While this book was not as compelling as I expected it to be, I completely agree with the general premise. That being that multi-culturalism taken too far is both harmful and counter-productive. Not to mention that it is completely antithetical to what our founders envisioned for this country. Mr. Schlesinger has nothing against the teaching of cultures other than European-American, but he insists that an over-emphasis on ethnicity, ultimately promotes division and an 'us vs. them' mentality. Multi-culturalists argue that it is important for students to be taught about their own respective ethnicity in order to have self-esteem and pride. Mr. Schlesinger argues, and I firmly agree, that as Americans, we no longer belong to the ethnicities of our grandfathers. Our founding fathers were clear about this, Americans are a "new race of men" who must "cast off the European skin, never to resume it." Indeed, America was meant to be a melting pot. Schlesinger acknowledges that throughout much of our history, many minorities were forcibly excluded from fully assimilating. This is no longer the case though, and I think it is important to point out that just because a man (or a nation) fails to live up to it's ideals, does not mean that the ideals are wrong. Included in the book are quotes from various Americans about this issue, and I was somewhat surprised by some of them. For instance, the great Frederick Douglas said, "No one idea has given rise to more opression and persecution toward the colored people of this country, than that which makes Africa, not America, their home. It is that wolfish idea that elbows us off the sidewalk, and denies us the rights of citizenship."

I firmly believe that this tribalist mentality is one of the foremost issues facing America today. We will not survive as a nation if we continue to separate ourselves along lines of race, ethnicity, or religion. As long as we view ourselves as Irish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, or African-Americans, we will never be true Americans. And we will not view each other as fellow Americans, but as separate tribes that need to be guarded against. Is this the America that our founding fathers would have wanted?

As I stated earlier, I didn't find the book as compelling as I expected. Not that it's not good, but I felt the author could have gone further. All in all, it is a decent starting point for anyone interested in the subject of multi-culturalism.

still a spot on rendering of current immigration.......2005-12-11

I'll admit upfront...I haven't reread this in several years. But I remember the text 's main arguments as if it were last month. Nothing in the ensuing years has undercut Mr Sclesinger's main argument, and much has substantiated it. In fact...one has only to look at the recent riots in France to see that it isn't even a distinctly American phenomenon.

Immigrants now, no matter where they come from, and where they end up, seem not to leave their country of origin with any real desire to assimilate...only to live better with the least amount of cultural conciliation possible.

The main flaw in this book, looking backwards, is that he doesn't delve deeply enough into the real economic drivers of immigration today in his search for the reason why. As I remember, Schlesinger places the blame, if that's the correct term, upon a shift in immigration policies by the U.S. that favors family reunification (as well as a prevailing atmosphere of political correctness) The PC argument is the weakest line of argument., in my mind.

The real culprit in this very true depiction of balkinization within American (and Wester European) society, is the capitalist need for ever more sources of fresh, unskilled, undemanding, easily exploited labor, which will work for substantially less than the going rate and not ask for more, nor question the terms or conditions under which it is employed. By definition, this is an immigrant workforce.

That it is slow to "assimilate" is not hard to comprehend. It doesn't have to. Today's economic structure make's sure that such a transistion is both smooth and many years off into the future, More to the point, the economic forces which benefit from this class of immigrants have shown themselves very adept at passing along the costs of their captive workforce to society at large...in terms of prolonged bilingual education, public education in general for non-citizens, taxpayer subsidized health care for uninsured, undocumented workers, and lower prevailing wages,

I'm a died in the wool liberal...and many liberals took issue with this book. Too bad, really...but as the saying goes...the truth hurts. Read this book. Think about the bilingual education political fracus which shook California a decade and a half ago. This book speaks to that.

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, not that anyone cares...but just to buttress my liberal credentials. I left the U.S. with one college semester of Spanish, and within three months I was conversant. How many of you know of someone who has lived here in the U.S. for more than a decade and can still hardly communicate in English?

That's what this book is about, on one level. The level in which prevailing economic forces prefer it that way is less explored, unfortunately. We no longer ask that you subscribe to the American dream...only that you accept a job at the Tyson chicken processing plant, and not make a fuss over either the wages nor the unsafe working conditions. If you can do that, plave your hand on this Bible and recite the oathe of allegiance the the United States of America....and be prepared for two political parties vying tooth and nail for your vote in the upcoming election.

A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria

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A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria
Daniel Jordan Smith
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0691127220

Book Description

E-mails proposing an "urgent business relationship" help make fraud Nigeria's largest source of foreign revenue after oil. But scams are also a central part of Nigeria's domestic cultural landscape. Corruption is so widespread in Nigeria that its citizens call it simply "the Nigerian factor." Willing or unwilling participants in corruption at every turn, Nigerians are deeply ambivalent about it--resigning themselves to it, justifying it, or complaining about it. They are painfully aware of the damage corruption does to their country and see themselves as their own worst enemies, but they have been unable to stop it. A Culture of Corruption is a profound and sympathetic attempt to understand the dilemmas average Nigerians face every day as they try to get ahead--or just survive--in a society riddled with corruption.

Drawing on firsthand experience, Daniel Jordan Smith paints a vivid portrait of Nigerian corruption--of nationwide fuel shortages in Africa's oil-producing giant, Internet cafés where the young launch their e-mail scams, checkpoints where drivers must bribe police, bogus organizations that siphon development aid, and houses painted with the fraud-preventive words "not for sale." This is a country where "419"--the number of an antifraud statute--has become an inescapable part of the culture, and so universal as a metaphor for deception that even a betrayed lover can say, "He played me 419." It is impossible to comprehend Nigeria today--from vigilantism and resurgent ethnic nationalism to rising Pentecostalism and accusations of witchcraft and cannibalism--without understanding the role played by corruption and popular reactions to it.

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THE BRIDE PRICE
This book is soooo good!
The Bride Price
"The Bride Price" my thoughts...
"The Bride Price" my thoughts...

The Bride Price
Buchi Emecheta
Manufacturer: George Braziller
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 080760951X

Customer Reviews:

THE BRIDE PRICE.......2006-10-13

The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta, conclusively provides a story for one of the mose entrenched igbo tradition, the bride price. As a female from Igboland, i am quite aware of the enormous significance of that custom and the concequences it has for any female who chooses to neglect or abandon it. Indeed Emecheta's story draws you in from inception and allows you to be a part of the protagonist's story. At the end of the story, you feel as if returning from a great cultural expedition and you are immensley disconcerted about the power of superstitions and of customs on situated individuals. Emecheta deserves all the credit for telling this powerful story with both unbridled style and grace.

This book is soooo good!.......2003-05-11

I loved this book so much. I cried at the end. I read the end over and over again. It was soooooo beautiful. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to indulge in a romance and learn about another culture. This is the first book i have read by Ms. Emecheta and I hope to read many more.

The Bride Price.......2000-11-10

The Bride Price is both an easy and enlightening read. Buchi Emecheta deftly captures the girl's adolescent fragility and power as she struggles to carve out her identity amongst the dictates of patriarchy, which her mother upholds to the point of betraying her own vulnerable daughter. ...

"The Bride Price" my thoughts..........2000-04-20

The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta is an insightful novel into the life of the Ibo people of Nigeria. Although the novel made me angry when I read it, I enjoyed the novels historical correctness whether I like it or not this is the way women were treated at this point in time. This novel gave me a wake up call as to how far things have come sense this time. No longer are we objects to be inherited by our dead brothers relatives or destine to marry who our small town chooses for us whether we love then or not. The story I think would have had a much better ending if Aku-nna could have made it. So that she could prove her culture's old superstitions wrong. All in all, I would recommend this book to any one that would enjoy a good story. Also it is a quick read, the novel keeps you entertained by the use of vivid images and a direct story line to follow so no one can get lost. This novel is similar in nature to Things Fall Apart which has one character names Oknkowo which is also used in the Bride price, this might suggest that he was a real man from that culture.

"The Bride Price" my thoughts..........2000-04-20

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