Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Apr 2013 · Penguin UK

About this eBook

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

A worldwide bestseller and the first part of Achebe's African Trilogy, Things Fall Apart is the compelling story of one man's battle to protect his community against the forces of change

Okonkwo is the greatest wrestler and warrior alive, and his fame spreads throughout West Africa like a bush-fire in the harmattan. But when he accidentally kills a clansman, things begin to fall apart. Then Okonkwo returns from exile to find missionaries and colonial governors have arrived in the village. With his world thrown radically off-balance he can only hurtle towards tragedy.

First published in 1958, Chinua Achebe's stark, coolly ironic novel reshaped both African and world literature, and has sold over ten million copies in forty-five languages. This arresting parable of a proud but powerless man witnessing the ruin of his people begins Achebe's landmark trilogy of works chronicling the fate of one African community, continued in Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease.

'His courage and generosity are made manifest in the work' Toni Morrison

'The writer in whose company the prison walls fell down' Nelson Mandela

'A great book, that bespeaks a great, brave, kind, human spirit' John Updike

With an Introduction by Biyi Bandele

Ratings and reviews

200 pages in I had to give up reading. It was unbearable. I loved Achebe's 'No Longer at Ease', but this one just doesn't hit the right spot for me. Too many characters, too many plot lines. I just couldn't bring myself to finish it.

This book showed the ignorances of the Europeans towards African values and traditions,it also showed the mindset of the Igbo people as weak and disloyal to their old values as they abandoned their religion to accept European Christianity and values to which the main character Okonkwo tried his best to make to his tribes people hang on to what their ancestors knew best,which is Igbo value but his plea fell on deaf ears, as the Igbos wanted a change and bought into European ideology,colonisation began.

A fascinating book, the imagination of the author are just phenomenal. also being a 11 year old and having been given this book as the first novel to read during my English class in Form 2 was really good. Also reading this novel in East Africa ( Dar Es Salaam, The United Republic of Tanzania) with fiction visions from this novel about West Africa Nigeria was just fascinating. Hopefully Kanu gets a chance to play football at the Uhuru Stadium in Dar Es Salaam.

About the author

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and was a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years, he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He was Professor at the David and Marianna Fisher University and Professor of Africana studies at Brown University. Chinua Achebe wrote over twenty books - novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry - and received numerous honours from around the world, including the Honourary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honourary doctorates from more than thirty colleges and universities. He was also the recipient of Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. In 2007, he won the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction. He died in 2013.