The Education of a British-Protected Child, By Chinua Achebe

The measured, eloquent voice of Chinua Achebe rings out clearly in these seventeen essays that combine the personal – memories of his father; King George V's portait hanging in his childhood home in colonised Nigeria - to his reflections on the legacy of colonialism and Nigerian identity.

We read of his flight after the military coup and the Biafran war ("I found it difficult to forgive Nigeria and my countrymen"), of his "British-protected" education in which he memorised war songs against Hitler, and the restorative power of fiction: "The new literature in Africa, like the old, is aware of the possibilities available to it for celebrating humanity in our continent."