A darkly comic political satire about an idealistic schoolmaster thrust into cabinet office in a newly independent African state.

Two years after British colonial rule ends in the fictional African state of Afromacoland, schoolmaster Alade Moses is unexpectedly summoned home from Britain and appointed Minister of Works. Principled, inexperienced and increasingly uneasy with the compromises of power, Moses enters a cabinet where patronage, vanity, corruption and party loyalty shape the machinery of government. As his efforts to reconcile public service with personal integrity place him at odds with colleagues and political expectations, his unwilling rise becomes the spark for a widening national crisis. First published in 1970, T. M. Aluko's darkly comic political satire remains a sharp study of idealism, postcolonial government and the costs of public office. This New Africa Library edition brings a major African political novel back into circulation for a new generation of readers.