No Longer At Ease

Published in 1960, the year of Nigeria's independence, No Longer At Ease is the second novel in Chinua Achebe's trilogy that explores Nigeria's history through fiction. The first novel, Things Fall Apart, details the period leading up to "pacification," the moment when British colonizers violently took control of southern Nigeria. No Longer At Ease is set at the brink of Nigeria's independence, some sixty-plus years later. This second novel vividly demonstrates the moral destruction colonialism wreaked on Igbo society and culture. (The third novel in the series, Arrow of God, is set in the period between pacification and independence, depicting the long, slow death of Igbo culture during colonialism.)

No Longer At Ease is the story of how a young, educated Nigerian man returns home from university education abroad, certain that young men like himself can and will eliminate corruption as they replace the older, uneducated and corrupt Africans who make up the civil workforce. But due to his own pride and lack of foresight, he soon becomes involved in corruption himself. We learn how one young man, despite his pure ideals, will never be a match against a system of power that relies on corruption and bribery.