Small By Small

As he works his way through his medical training, Ike Anya’s grandmother reassures him, ‘Everything worthwhile is achieved small by small.’

Small by Small charts the triumphs and failures of Ike’s student days through to his first demanding year as a house officer. A medical memoir unlike any from the West, this is filled with the colour and vibrancy of tempestuous 1990s Nigeria, where political unrest, social change and a worsening economy make a doctor’s life particularly challenging.

Full of compassion and insight, often humorous and always moving, this is a unique doctor’s journey.

Ike Anya is a consultant in public health medicine working in Nigeria and the UK. An honorary lecturer in public health at Imperial College, he teaches at Bristol University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A 2007 TED Global Fellow, he co-founded Nigeria Health Watch, EpiAfric, TEDxEuston and the Abuja Literary Society. He is an advisory council member of the AKO Caine Prize and has published in The Guardian, Huffington Post, Granta, Catapult, and Eclectica and in the anthology of essays by Nigerian writers on Nigeria: Of This Our Country. Co-editor of The Weaverbird Collection of new Nigerian writing, Ike has an MA in creative non-fiction from UEA.

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