A poetic novel-epic, narrated in a communal voice, that retells a thousand years of African history as a fall from "the way" — a life of reciprocity and shared wealth — through foreign invasion and the slave trade. Armah condemns the destroyers from outside and the African predators who served them in equal measure, and points toward a restored communal future. It is regarded as one of the great African novels of the twentieth century.
Author: Ayi Kwei Armah · Original publisher: East African Publishing House (Nairobi), 1973 (later editions: Heinemann, 1979; Third World Press, US)
