Overview

A very funny satire on the sad corruptions that threaten careerist politicians ... Chief the Honourable M.A. Nanga, MP, is a beautifully realized comic portrait of a fraudulent, arriviste, demagogic universal charmer. Set against Mr Nanga is the uncorrupted, sensual, self-inquiring young narrator Odili, and the real subtlety of the book lies in how perilously close Odili, the attractive, unidealized hero, comes at moments to the absurd, revolting Nanga, and it is exactly Odili's most attractive quality, his sensual zest for life, that puts him in the greatest peril of becoming yet one more Mr Nanga, the deflated demagogue who ends on the rubbish heap. Modern comedy.