Another impressive work by a master, dealing here with corruption at the highest levels of government in a fictitious post-colonial African state. There are really only four characters: Sam, Chris, Ikem, and Beatrice. The first three are English-educated friends who, after a military coup, find themselves as the nation’s president, Commissioner of Information, and editor of the nation’s principal newspaper—and friends no longer. Beatrice is a secretary in another ministry and Chris’s lover. Sam has surrounded himself with a ludicrous cabinet, a fact immensely troubling to the other three characters. Sam is terrified by his precariousness and vents his anger on the failure of Ikem’s home province, Abazon, to approve a referendum to make him president-for-life. Ikem is a crusading poet and journalist whose devotion to the truth and the people transcends political ideology. He becomes a popular hero of sorts after Sam dismisses him. Ikem’s spot-on critiques lead to the expected retaliation and Chris knows that he is next. As he goes into hiding, hoping to escape to Abazon, the country collapses into student revolt, midnight raids by Sam’s secret police, and a coup d’etat. Though Achebe develops Chris and Ikem and Beatrice as full and complete characters, Sam is far sketchier—a pity. Still, the writing is of uniformly high quality, incorporating clever political analysis as well as solid reliance on a Nigerian folktale and a nuanced consideration of the place of women—even Beatrice’s middle name becomes a matter of significance. I should also note that the characters occasionally speak the local pidgin among themselves; unless you are familiar with the local Nigerian version, my guess is that entire conversations will be incomprehensible to you on occasion, as they were to me. However, I saw one reviewer make the excellent point that its very incomprehensibility illustrates the alienation of the British-educated civil servants from their traditional culture while simultaneously honoring “the beauty and dignity of the folklore by which moral and behavioral standards were once transmitted.” ( )

The entire time I was reading Anthills of the Savannah I was suspicious of every single character. I knew going into it there was going to be a betrayal of some kind and that put me on edge. I was always questioning who would be the one to fall from grace. A friendship can be detroyed by a single misconception or a rumor born out of paranoia. All it takes is for one slight and lovers become enemies in an instant.
Reading Anthills of the Savannah was like being a vulture, soaring over the fictional African state of Kangan, hungry for the kill. From drought to political tribal disputes with city villages, the themes of love, friendship, and loyalty weave a complicated story. What with the Commissioner for Information, Commissioner for Education, Commissioner for Justice, Commissioner for Words, Commissioner for Works, Inspector General of Police, Chief Secretary, Master of Ceremonies, Superintendent of Traffic, and His Excellency all being introduced at once I felt like governance was a farse. ( )

Post-colonial episodes in West Africa, with strong and varied characters that illuminate social and political dimensions well. ( )

This book was waiting patiently for years on my shelf to be picked up. Now I am happy that I read it only after the The African Trilogy. It gained, so I feel, from the introduction to Achebe’s spirit the Trilogy gave me. It is a brilliant book! (X-18)

A later thought: The main characters remain somewhat distant; I did not really got involved in their fate. This must not necessarily be taken as a criticism: I do not know whether any other way would have worked. ( )

A great book looking at the "postcolonial" condition. Achebe uses a fictional country, but, really, it could be any nation who finds itself free for the first time in a century or two and is trying to figure out how to rule itself. Human nature is bound to get in the way: greed, the thirst for power, and the obligation to rebel against tyranny. At times it seems that the Western reader is pushed out through the use of pidgin, but I do think that this book, more than the story of Africa, is a story of human nature. I say this knowing that Achebe would likely shake his head and tell me I have it all wrong. ( )