Obi, the educated young Nigerian hero [of No Longer at Ease], sits in a government office in Lagos and reflects on his English boss:

He must have come originally with an ideal—to bring light to the heart of darkness, to tribal head-hunters performing weird ceremonies and unspeakable rites. But when he arrived Africa played him false. Where was his beloved bush full of human sacrifices?

And yet Okonkwo, Obi's grandfather, had severed heads, as readers of Chinua Achebe's previous novel [Things Fall Apart] may recall, and the darkness lay all around. (p. 616)

No Longer at Ease is Obi's contemporary story, another grim one. The pacification has been long completed and Nigerian independence isn't far off. The brilliant local boy returns, after several years' study in England, to find himself at odds with both his family and the well-wishers—the Umuofia Progressive Union—who subscribed to send him...