The American edition of Armah’s first novel, published in Boston by Houghton Mifflin with a copyright line of 1968. The copyright page states “Second Printing”, so this is the second impression rather than the first.
The jacket copy is a period document in its own right. It introduces Armah to American readers through his American education — Achimota, then a year at Groton, then Harvard and a cum laude degree in Social Studies — and describes a writer who “went back to take part in his country’s rebirth and had to leave, knowing he can only help from outside, if at all”. It sums the country up as “sloth, rot and greed”, and assures the American reader that the misspelled slogan on the bus holds a striking relevance for them too.
The novel takes its title from that slogan. The book is dedicated to Mrs. Dickson and Gwen, and the copyright page acknowledges permission from Alfred A. Knopf to quote Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet in chapter five.
The Library also holds Abiola Irele’s review of this novel, in Okyeame Vol. 4 No. 2 from Legon — the book and an early African critical response to it, catalogued in two different collections.
Impression. The copyright page reads “Second Printing”. This is the second impression of the American edition, not the first.
