{{Nigeria\u2019s Chinua Achebe, often called the father of modern African literature, released his first major work in years Thursday with a long-awaited memoir centred on the war that nearly destroyed his nation.}}<\/p>\n
\u201cThere Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra\u201d chronicles Achebe\u2019s experiences during Nigeria\u2019s 1967-1970 civil war, which saw his native eastern region, dominated by the Igbo ethnic group, secede as the Republic of Biafra.<\/p>\n
The split came largely in response to massacres of Igbos in Nigeria\u2019s north and saw Achebe, author of the revered novel \u201cThings Fall Apart,\u201d speak out forcefully in support of the move.<\/p>\n
His memoir was released in Britain on Thursday and will be available in Nigeria shortly after, said publishers Allen Lane, a division of Penguin. Its release in the United States is set for October 11.<\/p>\n
The tensions that ignited the Biafran conflict, which left around one million people dead, including many from starvation, are largely settled. Today, sporadic calls for greater Igbo autonomy have limited impact in Nigerian politics.<\/p>\n
Experts, however, say a Biafra memoir from the 81-year-old Achebe is urgently needed in a country that remains deeply fractured on other levels, despite the book\u2019s focus on events that happened more than four decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cAchebe is sustaining the debate on integration, on unity and on oneness,\u201d said Dapo Thomas, a history professor at Lagos State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil there is a sovereign agreement from the peasants to the elite that we want to remain as one, we must continue that debate. A nation cannot remain comatose while these issues are unresolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nigeria, Africa\u2019s most populous country with 160 million people, groups around 250 ethnic groups and is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.<\/p>\n
Achebe strongly backed his native Biafra in the civil war and even toured to speak on its behalf. Echoes of the conflict emerge in his writing, including his collection \u201cChristmas in Biafra and Other Poems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The octogenarian remains a towering figure in Nigerian and African literature, though he has been based in the United States in recent years where he has been a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island. He travels infrequently due to a 1990 car accident that left him in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
Achebe\u2019s novel \u201cThings Fall Apart\u201d, about the collision between British colonial rule and Igbo society, remains a landmark work 54 years after its release.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust as we read Shakespeare, it\u2019s not possible for any student in this department to graduate without reading the works of Chinua Achebe,\u201d said the head of the English department at the University of Lagos, Adeyemi Daramola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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