No Longer at Ease (22 page)

Fiction/978-0-385-08616-5

NO LONGER AT EASE

When Obi Okonkwo—grandson of Okonkwo, the main character of
Things Fall Apart
—returns to Nigeria from England in the 1950s, his foreign education separates him from his African roots. He’s become a part of a ruling elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. Forced to choose between traditional values and the demands of a changing world, he finds himself trapped between the expectations of his family, his village, and the larger society around him.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-385-47455-9

THINGS FALL APART

Things Fall Apart
tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world. The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo’s world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries. These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-385-47454-2

ALSO AVAILABLE
Collected Poems
, 978-1-4000-7658-1

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