Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Morning Yet on Creation Day | 1975 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 2 | The Trouble with Nigeria | 1984 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 3 | Hopes and Impediments | 1988 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 4 | The University and the Leadership Factor in Nigerian Politics | 1988 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 5 | Critical Fictions | 1992 | Chinua Achebe | N/A |
| 6 | Beyond Hunger In Africa | 1992 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 7 | Things Fall Apart with Connections | 1995 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 8 | Africa’s Tarnished Name | 1997 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 9 | Conversations with Chinua Achebe | 1997 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 10 | Another Africa | 1998 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 11 | Home and Exile | 2000 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 12 | An Image of Africa | 2002 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 13 | Africa: A Short History | 2004 | Chinua Achebe | N/A |
| 14 | The Education of a British-Protected Child | 2009 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
| 15 | There Was a Country | 2012 | Chinua Achebe | Buy |
Chinua Achebe was as important as an essayist and cultural critic as he was as a novelist. His nonfiction work spans nearly four decades, starting with Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975), a collection of essays on literature, culture, and the responsibilities of the African writer. Hopes and Impediments (1988) and An Image of Africa (2002) contain his most direct challenges to how Western literature portrayed the continent, including his famous critique of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
The Trouble with Nigeria (1984) is a blunt, short book about the failures of Nigerian leadership. Home and Exile (2000) reflects on the experience of being an African writer in a literary world shaped by Western institutions. His final major work, There Was a Country (2012), is a deeply personal memoir of the Biafran War that blends autobiography with historical argument and poetry. Across all of these books, Achebe wrote with a plainness and moral clarity that made his arguments hard to dismiss, whether he was talking about literature, politics, or personal experience.