Why the White Man is Better

About the Book

Anger, greed, and ego are in the minds of top Nigerian government officials under British colonialism as they intrude on peasants’ land and the estates bequeathed to them by their colonial masters. Betrayed and angry, the landowners secretly join to fight to retrieve their lands. The peasant landowners are rewarded with torture, imprisonment, and untimely death. Mathew, an upright kinsman, is disappointed in the hypocrisy of his fellow Black elite brothers and sets out to ensure his family will be on the frontlines of a movement to subvert the corruption that has taken over his land and right the injustices he and others have endured. After underestimating the stubborn will of the new landgrabbers, he is imprisoned. While he is behind bars, his wife dies. When a deceived and now elderly Mathew finally returns from prison, he concludes the White man is superior. But will his eldest son, Tudor, eventually find a way to fulfill Mathew’s dream for the downtrodden? In this historical novella, a kinsman and his eldest son must battle corrupt elites, Black neocolonialism, and the underdevelopment of Africa after greedy landgrabbers upend their lives.

About the Author

Sotonye Sagbe Boyle grew up in Abonnema, Nigeria. During his career development programme in Cape Town, South Africa, he was inspired to write his first novel, The White Man Is Better. His most recent work, Ben Abdul-Malik Akran, was inspired while he was sitting on the rail of a bridge on the QuaySide Peninsula in Cambridge, England, staring idly at marine birds.