I don't know why I put off for reading this book for so long, having read and loved. Things Fall Apart. Though the two stand independently, I wish I remembered more details about the first book, to tie the pieces together. At any rate, I was not disappointed. Though a sense of doomness runs through it, the book reads itself, so to speak.  The writing is engaging and elegant, which this is especially remarkable given the weight of the themes handled: family and tradition vs individual choice, one's moral duty in a corrupted structure, colonialism and its legacy, the alienation of the protagonist, caught in between two systems of thought...all discussed with such sensitivity and complexity. Really recommended.