Anthills of the Savannah

Anthills of the Savannah

First edition cover
Author Chinua Achebe
Language English
Publisher Heinemann
Publication date
1987
Media type Print
ISBN 978-0-385-26045-9
OCLC 19932181
Preceded by A Man of the People
Followed by There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Anthills of the Savannah is a 1987 novel by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. It was his fifth novel, first published in the UK 21 years after Achebe's previous one (A Man of the People in 1966), and was credited with having "revived his reputation in Britain".[1] A finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize for Fiction, Anthills of the Savannah has been described as the "most important novel to come out of Africa in the [1980s]".[2]

Plot

Anthills of the Savannah takes place in the imaginary West African country of Kangan, where a Sandhurst-trained officer, identified only as Sam and known as "His Excellency", has taken power following a military coup. Achebe describes the political situation through the experiences of three friends: Chris Oriko, the government's Commissioner for Information; Beatrice Okoh, an official in the Ministry of Finance and girlfriend of Chris; and Ikem Osodi, a newspaper editor critical of the regime. Other characters include Elewa, Ikem's girlfriend and Major "Samsonite" Ossai, a military official known for stapling hands with a Samsonite stapler. Tensions escalate through the novel, culminating in the assassination of Ikem by the regime, the toppling and death of Sam and finally the murder of Chris. The book ends with a non-traditional naming ceremony for Elewa and Ikem's month-old daughter, organized by Beatrice.

References

  1. Maya Jaggi, "Storyteller of the savannah", The Guardian, 18 November 2000.
  2. Holger G. Ehling. Critical Approaches to Anthills of the Savannah. The Netherlands: Rodopi, 1991. 1.

External links