Ekwensi, Cyprian

New York. 1969. November 1969. Fawcett. 1st American Printing. Very Good in Slightloy Worn Wrappers. Paperback Original. 207 pages. paperback. T454. keywords: Literature Nigeria Africa. FROM THE PUBLISHER - ‘Jagua Nana is a West African masterpiece; it is a story of all oppressed people can tell. Only Ekwensi tells is better.' - John A. Williams. ‘A West African Defoe, Cyprian Ekwensi ‘chronicles the fierce life of the city of Lagos, a city of politicians and wide-boys, changing so fast that even its number-one adventuress, known as Jagua Nana, can hardly keep pace. Ekwensi presents the exploits of his Nigerian Moll Flanders with a picaresque extravagance against a background that fascinates.' - London. Sunday Telegraph. ‘I believe it should find a warm welcome from English-speaking readers.' - Henry Miller. ‘Ekwensi portrays Jagua in all her often-contradictory moods. She is sharp-witted and calculating, but totally without knowledge of cause and effect, able to bring off small triumphs but never able to sort out her own life. She accepts the world as she finds it, seeing its meanness, enjoying its pleasures, whenever she can. As a fictional character, she will live a long time.' - Margaret Laurence. ‘ . a very good novel indeed, and one of the first to give us a truly authoritative picture of a little-known side of the New Africa, of the ‘high-life' of the towns and their night clubs and bars and political intrigues, balanced so precariously somewhere between aspirations toward European ways life and what no doubt might be called the low-life' of the bush. Mr. Ekwensi . has dealt with themes of great importance, and though he has not solved them - is that the novelist's business? - he has depicted them eloquently and with compassion.' - Time Literary Supplement. inventory #297