In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic and shows the breadth of Burgess’s interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess’s list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.

In this episode, Graham Foster explores the political world of Africa as depicted in A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe, with Achebe’s biographer Terri Ochiagha.

A Man of the People follows Odili, a young teacher who is promised an opportunity to study in England by the extravagant politician Nanga. As Odili is granted access to Nanga’s inner world he grows disillusioned with the corruption and greed of his host and swears to challenge him in an election. But what are Odili’s motives and can he resist the corrupting nature of power?

Chinua Achebe was born in 1930 in Nigeria. His first novel, Things Fall Apart, was published in 1958 and its later inclusion in the Heinemann African Writers Series brought him global recognition. He wrote four further novels, with Anthills of the Savannah being nominated for the Booker Prize in 1987. He also published short stories, essays, poetry and several books for children. He died in 2013.

Terri Ochiagha is a Lecturer in Global Anglophone Literatures at the University of Edinburgh, a Non-Resident Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Studies at Harvard, and a Senior Member of Robinson College, University of Cambridge. Her first book, Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite (2015), won the African Studies Association of the UK’s Fage and Oliver Prize. She published A Short History of Things Fall Apart in 2018 and is currently working on two major Achebe projects: his first full length biography, to be published by Princeton University Press, and an edited collection of essays, Achebe in Context, which will be published by Cambridge University Press.

Books mentioned in this episode

By Chinua Achebe:

• Things Fall Apart (1958)
• Chike and the River (1966)

By others:

• The Ambassadors by Henry James (1903)
• The Concubine by Elechi Amadi (1966)

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In previous series of Ninety-Nine Novels, we learnt about authors including James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Nadine Gordimer, Vladimir Nabokov and Christopher Isherwood, among others. These episodes are available at your favourite place to get podcasts.

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The theme music for the Ninety-Nine Novels podcast is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, performed by No Dice Collective.

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