by Elechi Amadi

Elechi Amadi was born near Port Harcourt in eastern Nigeria in 1934. Educated at Government College, Umuahia, and University College, Ibadan, Amadi received a degree in mathematics and physics. He taught science and mathematics from 1960 to 1963 in Merchants of Light School, Oba, before joining the Nigerian army. After three years Amadi left the army to teach and begin a writing career. His first novel, The Concubine, received accolades for its vivid depictions of Nigerian village life and remained highly popular in subsequent decades. Amadi went on to write more novels as well as plays and works of nonfiction, including an autobiographical account of his experience in Nigeria’s civil war (Sunset in Biafra, 1979) and a book of his philosophical ideas (Ethics in Nigerian Culture, 1982). Basic to all his works is the concept of life as an ongoing struggle. “There is a rather ironic contradiction...