{"product_id":"there-was-a-countrybooks","title":"There Was a Country","description":"\u003ci\u003eFrom the legendary author of \u003c\/i\u003eThings Fall Apart\u003ci\u003e comes a longawaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  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. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the  United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a  considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing  them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making,  comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful  events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring  stamp on world literature. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAchebe masterfully relates his  experience, bothas he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He  begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own  upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand  the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of  hatred began to stir. To read \u003ci\u003eThere Was a Country\u003c\/i\u003e is to be  powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation,  especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be  committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs,  and their people. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMarrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, \u003ci\u003eThere Was a Country \u003c\/i\u003eis  a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of  research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand  as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital  literary and moral voices of our age.","brand":"Achebe, Chinua","offers":[{"title":"Hardback (History)","offer_id":44596924481760,"sku":"","price":17.7,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0330\/3125\/8248\/files\/BNCImageAPI_c2c59a0e-d440-4004-abec-73e71e44dfd0.jpg?v=1704985552","url":"https:\/\/agricola-street-books.myshopify.com\/products\/there-was-a-countrybooks","provider":"Agricola Street Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}