Behind the Iron Curtain

by E A Ohiaeri

This fictional story is based upon real events of colonial and Cold War politics. On the 18th November 1949, the coal miners of Iva Valley in Enugu, Nigeria went on strike in protest against poor wages. Violence erupted, eleven miners were shot dead and several wounded. As a mark of solidarity, a trade union of the former GDR granted scholarships to the children of the dead miners and other progressives in Nigeria to study in Leipzig, East Germany. One such scholarship recipient leaves Nigeria for Leipzig, where he finds himself caught up in a nexus of conflicts between East and West, colonialists and colonised.

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