His first novel, The Only Son, was published in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 1966, followed in 1969 by its sequel, Obi, and then Oil Man of Obange (1971).
Munonye spent three years as the head of the Advanced Teacher Training College, Owerri, retiring in 1972 (he would also give his last public lecture there, entitled "The Last To Go").
[1] Munonye, unlike some of his contemporaries, professed a love for optimism in the face of colonial onslaught on traditional values.
To him, the dialectical environment of African and western tradition can be seen in both a positive light and outcome for the common Igbo or Nigerian man or woman.
Munonye sometimes view the common man as being born into a position whereby he is already at a disadvantage, both historically and presently, He sees little difference to the fate of the common man who could be manipulated at the whims of elites and chiefs in both pre- and post-colonial Nigeria and during colonialism.