A shadowed Dawn is set against the background of Peter Ofondu's life story, a victim of a hapless civil war, his years at college, his travels overseas, his loves, and his military involvement in the Biafran conflict. Out of the brutality and sadness of an Africa torn by civil war, comes a tale of the conflicts and trials of ethnic rivalries, of the passions and ideals of a man loyal to his country but haunted by the corruption and greed of its political and military factions. Peter Ofondu fights for a free and pure enclave within this corruption, but the side that wins is powerless to follow through to a final triumph.

His first tragic family loss drives him to seek an ultimate spiritual release in a remote bush Eden. William Agunwa heightens the reader's awareness of the heat and dust of West Africa, and its natural problems, loves and emotions are skilfully encased in the wider setting of a savage civil war.