The Education of a British-Protected Child

1 About this book

A new collection of autobiographical essays--his first new book in more than twenty years. Chinua Achebe's characteristically measured and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces.

In a preface, he discusses his historic visit to his Nigerian homeland on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, the story of his tragic car accident nearly twenty years ago, and the potent symbolism of President Obama's election.

In "The Education of a British-Protected Child," Achebe gives us a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria and inhabiting its "middle ground," recalling both his happy memories of reading novels in secondary school and the harsher truths of colonial rule. In "Spelling Our Proper Name," Achebe considers the African-American diaspora, meeting and reading Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, and learning what it means not to know "from whence he came."

Good for readers who want: essays and a true life story.

• Essays
• Biography
• Authors, biography
• Nigeria, biography