Chidi Amuta (2025), Homage: Return to Familiar Places. Lagos: Wilson & Weizmann Associates. ISBN: 978-978-768-114-5. 496 pages
Dr Chidi Amuta’s Homage to Familiar Places supports the common advice that young people should prioritise reading autobiographies and historical narratives. Homage to Familiar Places is an outstanding autobiography that fulfils the functions of good literature and the specific roles of autobiographies.
As an expert has observed, “The ultimate function of good literature is to give you X-ray vision—the ability to see the hidden emotional currents beneath the surface of social interactions. The ultimate function of good biography is to give you telescopic and microscopic vision—the ability to zoom out and see the long arc of a life, while zooming in on the granular daily habits that built that arc. Read literature to understand what human beings are capable of feeling. Read biographies to understand how specific human beings actually did, survived it, or failed at it. Together, they form the complete toolkit for a wise, examined life.”
Homage: Return To Familiar Places is a sweeping memoir by Chidi Amuta, a Nigerian academic, journalist, and public intellectual, chronicling his life journey from a humble village upbringing through war, academic achievement, media prominence, and into reflective old age. The book is structured as a deeply personal recollection, written as a letter to his children, particularly his daughter Uzo, who asked about his life’s path.
