“Long ago I wrote a novel about a young African man, well educated, full of promise and good intentions, who nevertheless got his affairs (fiscal and otherwise) in a big mess . . . I did not blame the banks for his inability to manage his finances. What I did do, or try to do, was offer leads to my readers for exploring the roots of the hero’s predicament by separating those factors for which an individual may justly be held accountable from others that are systemic and beyond the individual’s control.”

This is what Achebe said about No Longer At Ease in his 1998 speech, “Africa Is People.” This novel explores the effects of colonial rule at the individual level, through the example of one man caught between two conflicting inevitabilities; poverty and corruption. We see how his choices are not just his own, but the sum of those cultural and economic pressures which plague a young African nation-state that has been crippled by colonial exploitation.

A powerful overview of one man who is caught between an encroaching British empire and the constraints of tribal law. Achebe illustrates in great detail the impossibility of tribal leaders’ position, as they attempt to hold their ground against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. If the first volume in this series, “Things Fall Apart”, pinpoints the disunity of Nigeria’s tribes as its weak point, through which the British Empire was able to punch through, this second book seems to beg the further question; what could have been done in the face of such an enemy? Whether one attempts to cooperate, defy or negotiate, the end result appears to be more or less the same. I enjoyed this longer format, with its wider cast and scope of perspective - in this volume we unlock the perspective of a few of the white men administering so-called “management” on behalf of the British Empire. These men seem to represent the old imperial and new colonial regimes; they are united in their hypocrisy and brutality, but one is more insidious and pseudoscientific, the other more overtly violent. This latter type of man seems to symbolise an oncoming age of “entrepreneurial” colonialism; these new men are more ignorant and more violent, even less interested in cooperative efforts and even more governed by self-interest. This sets the stage for the corruption that gets explored deeper in “No Longer At Ease”.