Jumia Books There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe

“From the legendary author of “Things Fall Apart” comes a longawaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war” The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror.