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Contents

My grandfathers, whom I never knew,

Nwoye David Adichie and Aro-Nweke Felix Odigwe,

did not survive the war.

My grandmothers, Nwabuodu Regina Odigwe and Nwamgbafor Agnes Adichie, remarkable women both, did.

This book is dedicated to their memories: ka fa nodu na ndokwa.

And to Mellitus, wherever he may be.

Today I see it still –

Dry, wire-thin in sun and dust of the dry months –

Headstone on tiny debris of passionate courage.

– Chinua Achebe,

From ‘Mango Seedling’ in Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems

Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair. Ugwu’s aunty said this in a low voice as they walked on the path. ‘But he is a good man,’ she added. ‘And as long as you work well, you will eat well. You will even eat meat every day.

Ugwu did not believe that anybody, not even this master he was going to live with, ate meat every day. He did not disagree with his aunty, though, because he was too choked with expectation, too busy imagining his new life away from the village. They had been walking for a while now, since they got off the lorry at the motor park, and the afternoon sun burned the back of his neck. But he did not mind. He was prepared to walk hours more in even hotter sun. He had never seen anything like the streets that appeared after they went past the university gates, streets so smooth and tarred that he itched to lay his cheek down on them. He would never be able to describe to his sister Anulika how the bungalows here were painted the colour of the sky and sat side by side like polite, well-dressed men, how the hedges sep arating them were trimmed so flat on top that they looked like tables wrapped with leaves.