The Unforgettable Story of Biafra: An Intimate History of a Nation

fabio massimo: When I was a child I was taught not to waste food as a sign of respect Howard Biafra's people starving, Now I know that respect was well deserved. Very interesting the reconstruction of Nigerian cursus honorum and of sociological reasons that led to war

Italy on Feb 08, 2024

Josiah Shondo: This captivating historical book interweaves factual elements and is definitely worth reading.

Germany on Jul 04, 2023

MV: Pedí este libro desde México y llegó muy rápido y en excelentes condiciones. En México no había otra alternativa para conseguir este libro, así que estoy muy satisfecha. Me resultará de mucha ayuda para mi tesis, pues estoy estudiando la guerra civil de Nigeria y esta obra es muy valiosa en términos históricos, biográficos y literarios. Muy recomendado.

Mexico on Feb 08, 2021

Vinus: When you start reading this book, you will just know it is the master himself writing. God bless your soul Achebe. You were a great gift to Arts.

Canada on Aug 07, 2019

: The book told the Biafra story from personal involvement and with facts of history. As I lived through the war, I was able to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Chinua Achebe was a natural story teller.

Will recommend this book to all Nigerians and others who want to know about the Nigeria's civil war.

India on Feb 24, 2017

JamesW: "There Was a Country" is a well written and documented account of the Nigeria-Biafra war which is mostly forgotten today. This history of Biafra was written by Chinua Achebe who lived through it. I found the Notes in the back of the book as fascinating as the main text. The story was a very personal read for me. I entered the country three months after the war ended to start a new job for an oilwell drilling company and my family entered the country three months after my arrival. We started out living in Lagos but were soon relocated to Port Harcourt in the Rivers State,an area where much of the death and destruction took place. Unemployment was very high, infastructure was in shambles and daily life for the survivors was very uncertain. I did return again in the 1980's off and on for another three years but improvement in living conditions for the native people was scarcely noticeable. I still follow with interest any news available concerning Nigeria. Nigeria is not the only country in Africa to suffer after gaining there independence from a colonial master, there are many more.

United States on Nov 06, 2012

Ezeji: Achebe's Top Ten Teachable Lessons

By Biko Agozino,
Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech.

`... My father and his uncle formed the dialectic that I inherited.' Achebe stated on page 13 of There Was A Country, his new instant classic. For those who do not know, a dialectic is the negation or contradiction between opposites (the thesis and the anti-thesis, negation or contradiction) that results in a synthesis (or negation of the negation) through a combination of the best in the thesis and the anti-thesis. The synthesis becomes the new thesis to be soon contradicted by a new anti-thesis in endless struggles between ideas (according to Hegel) or struggles between social classes (according to Marx) but the struggles are between cultural traditions in the case of Achebe:

Achebe's father was raised as a devout Christian by his own uncle who was a titled practitioner of Odinani (Igbo religion). No Christian or Muslim would be tolerant enough to raise a family member in African traditional religion today. Most reviewers of Achebe's book so far have missed the significance of this foundational thesis of Achebe in There Was A Coutry. Wole...

United States on Nov 02, 2012

Maureen: 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 a may have provided the super structure for Achebe's literary world view. Nnena Orji also has admirably observed that "It seems...that the insertion of poems in the story is also a throw-back to Igbo traditional narrative styles that emanated from the oral tradition where the story itself was interspersed with chanting, singing and poetry. It occurred to me that Professor Achebe was making a concerted effort to embrace this "authentic African narrative structure" and was not, as some other shallow readings have suggested, just experimenting or taking artistic license.

In the western literary tradition, narrative structure followed very strict rules. I think it was G.F.W. Hegel in the 19th century that referred to poetry as "the universal art of the mind [that] runs through all the arts and is art's highest...

United States on Oct 15, 2012