No Longer at Ease

“African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe. For passion, intellect, and crystalline prose, he is unsurpassed.” —Tony Morrison

A classic story of moral struggle in an age of turbulent social change and the final book in Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy

When Obi Okonkwo, grandson of Okonkwo, the main character in Things Fall Apart, returns to Nigeria from England in the 1950s, his foreign education separates him from his African roots. No Longer at Ease, the third and concluding novel in Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, depicts the uncertainties that beset the nation of Nigeria as independence from colonial rule loomed near. In Obi Okonkwo’s experiences, the ambiguities, pitfalls, and temptations of a rapidly evolving society are revealed. He is part of the ruling Nigerian elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. His fate, however, overtakes him as he finds himself trapped between the expectations of his family, his village—both representations of the traditional world of his ancestors—and the colonial world. A story of a man lost in cultural limbo and a nation entering a new age of disillusionment, No Longer at Ease is a powerful metaphor for his generation of young Nigerians.