Michael Holman

Independence Days

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

By

Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 333pp £20 order from our bookshop

The author is one of Africa’s finest novelists, his subject is one of Africa’s greatest tragedies, the accusations he makes could not be more serious, and his prognosis for Nigeria is grim indeed. This combination should make for a compelling read. Instead the result is a quirky mix of opinion, autobiography, history and polemic, uneven in quality and partisan in perspective.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter