Cold War sponsorships: Chinua Achebe and the dialectics of collaboration

Since its publication, Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People has been overshadowed by its seemingly prophetic announcement of military intervention in Nigerian politics. In this article I suggest that the novel participates in a circuit of mid-century novels critiquing prevalent cold war rhetoric. It explores the problematic project of an African nation state riven by political alliances sponsored by dominant cold war powers. Within this context of sponsorship competitions, Achebe explores the possibility of a plebeian politics outside the vying east–west cold war constellation.