The Making of an African Legend: The Biafra Story

Összefoglaló

This book, which forms the background narrative to The Pogs of War, is an outstanding and vivid example of odern journalism at its best. Frederick Forsyth, before he.ecame one of the world's best-selling novelists, was an experienced and much respected Reuters' and B.B.C. correspondent, noted for the research, accuracy and courage hich he gave to his reports. n this shocking indictment of the Nigerian civil war, Forsyth as taken an unashamedly Biafran point of view; he traces he origins of the war to its roots in tribal antagonisms and ritish colonial policy, and he shows how General Gowon's oncentrated assault on Biafra, with the tacit support of a British Labour government who supplied the Nigerian ilitary clique with arms, begins to look like genocide, ertainly 'the biggest bloodbath in Africa's history'. First published as The Biafra Story in 1969, the book has een extensively revised for this edition. In his new prologue, Frederick Forsyth writes: Nothing can or ever will minimize the injustice and brutality erpetrated on the Biafran people, nor diminish the shamefulness of a British government's frantic, albeit indirect, participation... On its original appearance [the book] was roundly condemned in certain areas and by certain circles. AII those who condemned it had one thing in common : they ere all in positions of power and authority, to wit, the stablishment... That, to me, is its own commendation.'