Sorin Hadârcă's Reviews > Anthills of the Savannah

The "Anthills of the Savannah" starts as a satire and unfolds as a political thriller towards a theatrical ending. All in brilliant prose, which is typical of Chinua Achebe.

The satire bit didn't work quite well for me. Distant in time and geography, it felt like an inside joke which I didn't quite get. Yet I bet it feels different to a Nigerian who lived through the times. All I got is that in a totalitarian state (USSR in my case) satire was often the only lightning rod available to divert the absurdist drama of daily life.

It was serendipitous to read this novel next to "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Adichie for it captures the atmosphere leading to the coup d'etat in the post-independence Nigeria, which in turn leads to the civil war in Biafra region.

Now, Adichie and Achebe's literary styles are worlds apart, yet both Nigerian authors (and both Igbo by ethnicity) dig into the same past and extract meaning that shapes the present. What can I say: literature works in mysterious ways!