No Longer at Ease

No Longer at Ease is a 1960 novel by Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian professor, poet, and literary critic. It is the sequel to Things Fall Apart, which is widely considered the most eminent work in modern African literature. The story follows Obi Okonkwo, a member of the Igbo ethnic group, who leaves his home in southeastern Nigeria to follow his dream of going to school in Britain. Thereafter, he works in Nigeria’s civil service, a colonial institution, and is forced to reflect on the fraught relationship between the Western world and the many African cultures that it has systematically subjugated. The novel details the course of events that led to Obi accepting a bribe. The work’s title is a reference to the poem “The Journey of the Magi” by British modernist writer T.S. Eliot, in which the speaker laments, “We returned to our places, these kingdoms, / But no longer at ease here.”

No Longer At Ease begins with a brief sketch of Obi Okonkwo’s trial following his arrest in a sting operation. The story then rewinds to the time before he left for England to attend school. Obi’s education is funded by the Igbo constituents of the Umuofia Progressive Union, or UPU. The UPU consists of men who moved out of their rural villages to work in Nigeria’s burgeoning urban businesses. They fund Obi’s law education with a loan in the hope that he will one day return to Nigeria and help defend the Igbo people against the infinitely power-hungry British colonists. However, once in England, Obi chooses to study English instead of law. He meets his future girlfriend, Clara Okeke, during a school dance.

Obi finishes his four years of undergraduate work and earns a degree. Afterward, he moves to Lagos, where he lives with his friend Joseph. He is offered a job working for Lagos’ Scholarship Board, which interviews promising students, nominating a select few for university scholarships. On one of Obi’s first days working for the Scholarship Board, a man tries to bribe him to nominate his sister for funding. Angrily, Obi immediately refuses the proposition. Shortly after, the man’s sister appears instead. She offers him sex in exchange for a nomination. Again, Obi refuses.



While working for the Scholarship Board, Obi falls in love with Clara. She tells him a difficult secret: she is a Nigerian osu – a descendant of people who were cast out of their community. Because she is an osu, Obi is prohibited by Igbo custom from marrying her. Obi is conflicted because he desires a traditional marriage. Nevertheless, he resolves to marry Clara. His father, though he is a Christian who renounces many of the Igbo’s arcane traditions, refuses to give Obi his blessing to marry Clara because of her status as a pariah. Obi’s mother, meanwhile, is suffering from the late stages of a terminal illness, and she implores her son not to marry Clara until she dies. She even threatens to commit suicide if she learns that Obi has married. Obi tells Clara about his parents’ opinions. Shocked by their ignorance, she decides not to marry Obi but reveals that she is pregnant with their son. Obi helps her get an illegal abortion; though she gives consent, it traumatizes her. During the procedure, she experiences some adverse side effects and turns Obi away during her recovery.

Meanwhile, Obi suffers financially. He has failed to keep on top of his bills, which are now astronomical with the addition of the black market abortion fee, his obligations to repay the UPU’s loan, and the promise he made to his siblings to pay for their schooling.

Obi’s mother passes away. His grief affects him so greatly that he is unable to stomach going home for her funeral. He decides to spend the money he would have spent traveling home to help pay for the funeral expenses and help his father pay for some household necessities. When Obi starts feeling better, he looks at his job differently. Disillusioned about the possibility of a more just Nigeria, he starts accepting bribes, interpreting the world as a permanently broken system of financial incentives. At the novel’s tragic conclusion, Obi makes an effort to think more optimistically about his role in Nigeria, and accepts what he declares to himself is his final bribe. Unfortunately, the bribe is part of a sting operation orchestrated by the Nigerian government to catch corrupt civil employees. Obi is arrested and imprisoned, where he awaits trial.



No Longer at Ease illuminates the modern Catch-22 situation in the lives of many Africans. Unable to enact much real change in a country that is controlled by colonial interests, they resort to the very corrupt behavior that they seek to eliminate. Achebe’s novel exposes this predicament in vivid detail, but its protagonist ultimately falls short of a solution.