Mister Johnson

"The last and best of Joyce Cary's four 'African' novels, Mister Johnson draws on his experience in the British colonial service in Nigeria from 1913 to 1919. The 'Mister Johnson who gives the book its title is an ebullient, dream-filled native clerk unknowingly at sea in a world he cannot comprehend. When the District Officer Harry Rudbeck, bored with paperwork, decides to build a road to link up with the main trade route one hundred miles away, it is Mr. Johnson's enthusiasm and financial dexterity that get the project done and, at the same time, lead to his tragic downfall."--