Chinua Achebe's "No Longer at Ease": A Tale of Social Unrest in Colonial Africa

Christine A.: Beautiful writing. Loved the believable characters, I was there with him on his journey.
One more book to go. Can’t wait.

United Kingdom on Jul 31, 2023

jrpritchard: This didn’t hit me in the same way as the first of the trilogy, but the different setting still carries an impact. The mixing and mismatching of expectations between British and Igbo cultures speaks volumes and is conveyed on multiple levels. Thought provoking read.

United Kingdom on May 21, 2023

Lumbi: A ver, se lee sin problemas y la historia del libro está muy bien. Pero el papel y la calidad de la impresión no son muy buenas.

Spain on Apr 19, 2023

Robert Mason: Part of my interest in modern African/Black literature. Achebe at his bleakest . A treatise on the political developments in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. Not comfortable reading because the writer seems to be disillusioned, having been at the forefront of post colonial freedom struggles in the past.

United Kingdom on Sep 02, 2022

Jon Waters: No Longer At Ease is the third installment of Achebe’s African Trilogy, first published in 1960. This volume follows the third generation of a family from a native Igbo village in what is now Nigeria. Achebe, university educated in England as an English major, again cites T.S. Eliot (“The Journey of the Magi”) for the epigraph to the book:

“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods.”

Obi Okonkwo is two generations removed from his grandfather, the strong man of the village of Umuofia, who killed the messenger from the new British colonial administration, and then hanged himself. As the elder Odogwu said, “Today greatness has changed its tune. Titles are no longer great, neither are barns or large numbers of wives and children. Greatness is now in the things of the white man.”

Obi Okonkwo’s father Isaac was the eldest son of this strong-man Okonkwo, who converted to the new religion of Christianity with a zeal consistent with Okonkwo’s passion for life, and as a result was ostracized by the village. But his son Obi was easily the best student from...

United States on Aug 24, 2019

Margaret Carmel: After reading Things Fall Apart, I decided to check out the next book in the series.

This is the story of Okonkwo's grandson, who becomes the first person from their village to earn a college degree in the United Kingdom and return to Nigeria. The first scene in the book is his trial for corruption, and then it goes back in time and tells the story of how he got to that point. The story shows the dilemma of a split upbringing of educated Africans through Obi's struggles upon his return to Nigeria. He doesn't quite fit in with the Africans from his village anymore due to his education and experience abroad, but he also isn't considered white and therefore isn't a part of that community either. In the beginning he is super ambitious and wants to change the world. Eventually, he gets sucked into the cyclical nature of corruption and debt that plauges Africa. What I found most interesting about this book is how Achebe uses the one story of Obi to illustrate the plight of colonial Africa.

The idea of belonging to two cultures, a stacked system, societal expectations, and the hypocrisy of religion and culture clashing were really interesting to me especially because all of...

United States on Jun 26, 2015

Susan: For those readers who like to experience the literature of other worlds, the famed THINGS FALL APART trilogy of Chinua Achebe continues to offer an insight into how other cultures operate and contrast with others' ways of life. In this second of the three books about the downfall of traditional African societies, Mr. Achebe continues his story of an African chief's family, as it tumbles from community grace and fortune, under the advance of Western powers' influx and influence, on the African continent.

In this second novel, we find the grandson of chief Obi Okonkwo being sent to the West to study the white man's language, culture and ways. When the grandson, also named Obi, returns to Lagos, Nigeria from England, he secures a prestigious desk job that takes him far away from his cultural and ancestral roots, back in his bush village. But the long arm of his traditional community reaches and influences him, even while he tries to learn and accommodate to the ways of modern Nigeria. In the process, the new, young functionary finds city women, personal finances, white coworkers, his higher education and changing life habits to be an overwhelming challenge. Soon the younger...

United States on Jul 30, 2013

San Patch: Chinua Achebe is a supreme story-teller. With Achebe, there is no high-minded judgment, no ascription of guilt, no rebuttal of colonialism, and no axe to grind. In this wonderful book, Achebe takes the reader on a journey, charting the inexorable descent of a dashing, idealistic civil servant in Colonial Nigeria.

The novel is set in the 1950s. The protagonist is the young, Western-educated Obi Okonkwo. Obi, the grandson of Okonkwo, the tragic protagonist of Achebe's great novel, Things Fall Apart, is sent on a scholarship to Great Britain, where he studies English. On his return to Nigeria, Obi is automatically catapulted into the elite ranks of the Civil Service; he receives a nice car and a posh apartment in a smart 'all European' neighbourhood in the capital city, Lagos. At the age of twenty-five, Obi, who was raised in a provincial backwater, seems to be on his way to the top.

However, all is not well with Obi. He struggles to reconcile his Western training and Christian upbringing with his native Ibo traditions. In time, Obi falls for the beautiful Clara and proposes to marry her. One small snag: Clara belongs to a cast of untouchables called the Osu. His...

United Kingdom on Mar 08, 2009