USA Africa Dialogue Series - PART ONE of EIGHT (Review by Bolaji Aluko): "There Was A Country - A Personal History of Biafra" - by Prof. Chinua Achebe

October 2012

Dear All:

Today, October 30, I got delivered my own personal hard-copy edition of the 333-page new book " "There Was A Country - A Personal History of Biafra"  (The Penguin Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59420-482-1) - by Prof. Chinua Achebe.  Nice print, handy book, which I refer to in short-hand form as "TWAC-CA."  

I intend to do an eight-part review - twice the number of parts in the book.  When I will finish the review, only the Lord knows. I am hereby freed from the accusation of reviewing a book that I have not read, even though I have always admitted that I was commenting on the comments of others, not the book itself.

This is Part One - and it is a simple one, which is surprising even to me.  What confronted me first in the book  (spread on what would be pages xii and xiii, although not so numbered) was a version of one of two maps that I have been showing on these Naija-Nets in the past two weeks:  Biafra May 1967 and Biafra January 1970.

The other companion map - which is NOT in the book - in fact there is NO OTHER diagram inside the book, except for the picture of the red-capped Prof. on the back flap of the book - is shown below.

This lazily comprises Part One of my Eight-Part review, ending with this poem.

1966

absentminded

our thoughtless days

sat at dire controls

and played indolently

slowly downward in remote

subterranean shaft

a diamond-tipped

drill point crept closer

to residual chaos to

rare artesian hatred

that once squirted warm

blood in God's face

confirming His first

disappointment in Eden

  - page 62 (TWAC-CA)

Best wishes all.

Bolaji Aluko

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