Publisher, Tantor Audio (October 2009)

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"Humane and carefully argued responses to events of recent years, coupled with a long look back at the African past." ---Kirkus

"Highly recommended." ---Library Journal, Starred Review

"Achebe writes with generosity, reason, and elegant clarity about the perpetual struggles between tyranny and resistance, denial and remembrance." ---Booklist

"A welcome return to the issues he helped define, [listeners] will find much to ponder regarding family and community as well as the legacy of Africa and Africans around the world." ---Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"In this book [Achebe] tangles further, and profitably, with the obsessions that have defined his career; colonialism, identity, family, the uses and abuses of language." ---New York Times

From the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart and the winner of the Man Booker International Prize comes a new collection of autobiographical essays---his first new book in more than twenty years.

Chinua Achebe's characteristically measured and nuanced voice is everywhere present in the seventeen beautifully written pieces contained in this collection. In "The Education of a British-Protected Child," Achebe gives us a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria and inhabiting its "middle ground," recalling both his happy memories of reading novels in secondary school and the harsher truths of colonial rule. In "African-American Visitations," we witness the terrifying nature of the African diaspora and what it means not to know "from whence he came." Politics and history figure in "What Is Nigeria to Me?" "Africa's Tarnished Name," and "Politics of the Politicians of Language." And Achebe's extraordinary family comes into view in "My Dad and Me" and "My Daughters."

Charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise, The Education of a British-Protected Child is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.

About the Author: Chinua Achebe is a prominent Nigerian writer who is famous for his novels describing the effects of Western customs and values on traditional African society. Achebe's satire and his keen ear for spoken language have made him one of the most highly esteemed African writers in English. He has published novels, essay collections, poetry, short stories, and juvenile fiction. Among his works are Things Fall Apart, Anthills of the Savannah, A Man of the People, Arrow of God, and the notable collections Morning Yet on Creation Day and Hopes and Impediments. A recipient of the Man Booker International Prize, he is currently the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

About the Narrator: Michael Page has recorded over 100 audiobooks and as a professional actor has performed regularly since 1998 with the Peterborough Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, he is currently a professor of theater at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he lives with his wife, Jane, and two daughters, Camilla and Chloe (when they are not away at college). He has a particular interest in Shakespeare and Eastern European theater and travels frequently to Hungary and Romania. Among the books he has recorded, his favorites include Great Expectations, The Three Musketeers, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.