The Education of a British-Protected Child - by Chinua Achebe (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From one of the greatest writers of the modern era, an intimate and essential collection of personal essays on home, identity, and colonialism

Chinua Achebe's characteristically eloquent and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. From a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria to considerations on the African-American Diaspora, from a glimpse into his extraordinary family life and his thoughts on the potent symbolism of President Obama's elections--this charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise collection is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.

Review Quotes

"An eclectic and thorough view of Achebe in his longtime roles as writer, father, and teacher. [Written] with the same generosity and humility that have always distinguished his work. . . . [Achebe] strives to act and to write with empathy and nuance rather than with fanaticism. . . . [He writes] in his characteristically gentle narrative style, that way he has of seeming to be in casual conversation, discussing matters big and small with an interested and sympathetic companion."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Measured but firm. . . . Achebe's deeply humane intelligence reverberates."
--Newsday

"Sharp and fresh. . . . Achebe's assessment of colonial contact [has] gravitas and pathos. . . . He is one of world literature's great humane voices."
--The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"A welcome return. . . . [Achebe] writes firmly and vividly. . . . [He] tangles further, and profitably, with the obsessions that have defined his career; colonialism, identity, family, the uses and abuses of language."
--The New York Times

"Quite wonderful: it gives the reader the feeling of sitting across the table and talking on easy terms with one of the world's deepest and broadest literary minds, gaining insight into Achebe's life and work, but also into Nigeria, colonialism, and the complicated interplay of European and African culture. . . . Rich and insightful."
--The Buffalo News

"Timeless. . . . Achebe has stayed an engaged and provocative voice. There's plenty of pluck and fight in this collection. . . . [His] arguments are well reasoned, interesting, and often engrossing."
--The Associated Press

"This collection of beautifully written autobiographical essays reveals much about [Achebe's] worldview."
--The Christian Science Monitor

"[Achebe's] essays range from the political to the historical to the personal, yet they are all projected through an intimate, biographical lens, thus making each a milestone on his long journey on this earth. . . . It is a mark of Achebe's genius as a narrator that one could hear him many times on the same subject and never grow bored."
--The Guardian (London)

"British protection assumed the humiliation and denial of dignity of colonialism but also allowed for the unpredictable in human affairs. . . . In all of these essays . . . Achebe generously locates and describes this unpredictable area."
--The Boston Globe

"Achebe has discharged the burden of storyteller and intellectual with penetrating intelligence and sensitivity. . . . The essays reveal a characteristic awareness of history . . . and an intellectual temperament suspicious of fanaticism of any sort, secular or religious."
--Financial Times

"The hero Achebe has become is not disassembled before us in these essays. If anything, he is, as an individual hero, remade. . . . [His] many personal anecdotes in The Education amount, in the end, to something like liner notes to the great songs of his novels."
--Columbia Journalism Review

"Early in the book, Achebe states that his thinking occupies the 'middle-ground' which is 'un-dramatic' and 'unspectacular.' But don't be fooled; his is a voice that roars. . . . There is much to admire about the life and mind of one of the world's most important writers and thinkers."
--The Independent (London)

"The essays, like his novels, are models of clarity, care and thoughtfulness. They are the product of a western-educated mind, but are suffused with an Igbo sensibility."
--The Times (London)

"Surprising and revelatory . . . wise and scintillating. . . . Here style is substance as Achebe writes with generosity, reason, and elegant clarity about the perpetual struggles between tyranny and resistance, denial and remembrance."
--Booklist

"For all the ferocity of Achebe's argument, he never loses his sense of humour, his instinct for poetry, nor his belief in the resilience of the human spirit."
--The Scotsman

About the Author

Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was born in Nigeria. Widely considered to be the father of modern African literature, he is best known for his masterful African Trilogy, consisting of Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, and No Longer at Ease. The trilogy tells the story of a single Nigerian community over three generations from first colonial contact to urban migration and the breakdown of traditional cultures. He is also the author of Anthills of the Savannah, A Man of the People, Girls at War and Other Stories, Home and Exile, Hopes and Impediments, Collected Poems, The Education of a British-Protected Child, Chike and the River, and There Was a Country. He was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University and, for more than fifteen years, was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. Achebe was the recipient of the Nigerian National Merit Award, Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement. In 2007, Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement.