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Chinua Achebe's books are being read throughout the English-speaking world. They have been translated into more than fifty languages. His publishers estimate that more than eight million copies of his first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) have been sold. As a consequence, he is the best known and most widely studied African author. His distinguished books of fiction and nonfiction include No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, Morning Yet on Creation Day, Christmas in Biafra, and others.

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Simon Gikandi has set out to reveal the very nature of Achebe's creativity, its prodigious complexity and richness, its paradoxes and ambiguities. ... Read more

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Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe's THINGS FALL APART is the most widely read African novel. Since its publication in 1958, it has become a classic, often compared to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. Ezenwo-Ohaeto's biography is the first comprehensive account of this major writer's life to date--and places Achebe's life and work in the context of African history. 25 photos .Amazon.com Review
Chinua Achebe is the founding father of modernAfrican literature. His novels, from Things Fall Apart (1958) toAnthills of the Savannah (1987), set the standard for all writerswho aspire to portray the continent's complex colonial and triballegacy. This respectful biography by former student Ezenwa-Ohaeto thoroughlydelineates the tangled history of Achebe's native Nigeria andchronicles his courageous support of human rights, frequentlyviolated by Nigeria's government. Achebe's magical fiction needs noexplication, but with this biography Western readers will gain a new understanding of the man who created it. ... Read more

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Satire plays a prominent and often controversial role in postcolonial fiction. Satire and the Postcolonial Novel offers the first study of this topic, employing the insights of postcolonial comparative theories to revisit Western formulations of "satire" and the "satiric."
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THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.


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This volume gathers together some of the best critical essays on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Written in very straightforward prose, the simplicity of style belies the complexity of the novel in which there are no absolute stereotypes and no easy strategies for separating truth and fiction. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts presents critical essays that reflect a variety of schools of criticism on the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature. Each volume also contains an introductory essay by Harold Bloom, critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index. ... Read more

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"Reader's Guides" provide a comprehensive starting point for any advanced student, giving an overview of the context, criticism and influence of key works. Each guide also offers students fresh critical insights and provides a practical introduction to close reading and to analysing literary language and form. They provide up-to-date, authoritative but accessible guides to the most commonly studied classic texts. Chinua Achebe's remarkable novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) is probably the best known African novel and has become one of the world's most influential literary masterpieces. Since publication, a total of nearly 12 million copies have been sold, with translations into more than 50 languages. Despite its undoubted success, its apparent simplicity has tended to blind readers to the dazzling storytelling resources and the inventive language, plot, setting, and characterization which first draw them to the novel and keep them reading.This is the ideal guide to the text, setting Things Fall Apart in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception and examining its afterlife in literature, film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading. ... Read more

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A brilliant work of scholarship
First, before you proceed any further with this book, you ought to know that it's not a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of Things Fall Apart. If you're looking for a book on plot details and character profiles, this is not really the book for you. Ogede's study is specifically about the context, style, and themes of the African classic, and generally intertextual, placing the novel within a broader framework of postcolonial writing.

Having said that, it needs to be pointed out that Ogede's book is the most brilliant reading of Things Fall Apart ever published. He explores the background, themes, and stylistic patterns of the novel, focusing especially on proverbs and the structure of Achebe's sentences. This, of course, has been done repeatedly over the 50 years since the novel's publication, but Ogede's perspective is startlingly new. Rather than simply reproducing the same tired explanations, he pools the materials into fresh combinations and also brings in entirely new insights. To begin with, Ogede goes over the novel's background--the author's upbringing, colonial education, historical accounts of colonial rule in Africa where the novel is set--and relates these to the themes of traditional Ibo (African) culture, the role of missionaries, soldiers, and colonial administrative officers in establishing colonial rule, how these impacted the native peoples of Africa, and how they attempted to fight off the intrusive forces. By exploring these subjects, Ogede puts together a picture of Ibo daily life, onset of colonial rule and native resistance to foreign occupation, how the native peoples lived, worked, played, made conversation, and acquired friends; and these were traumatically disrupted. Ogede uses these accounts as evidence of a vibrant Ibo culture before the arrival of European rulers destroyed it beyond a point where it could be reclaimed.

In the end, Ogede gives a scene by scene account of the television adaptation of the novel and provides expert guidance to the reader on essential criticism relating to the text. Ogede's final argument is that Things Fall Apart is Africa's best cultural export internationally.

When all is said and done, Ogede's book is dazzling. Well written, engrossing, lively, and felicitously expressed, this book is a must for anyone interested in African literature or world fiction generally. The witty style, accuracy of claims, sound literary judgment, scientific exactness, and detailed documentation simply add to the value of the book.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!Great Insights!
An excellent book complete with interesting new interpretations of one of the lasting monuments of world literature. A great source for those researching the contexts and literary strategies of Chinua Achebe's masterpiece Things Fall Apart. The book is scholarly but the witty style makes it a good read. How well, for instance, proverbs are explained and previous readings of the novel distilled! Highly recommended.Also would imagine that this would be an excellent resource for students studying African Literature, especially Chinua Achebe's works as well as professors and teachers alike.
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Chinua Achebe's classic novel, with Connections identifying themes, concepts and defining words & phrases. Includes map & glossary. 222 pages. ... Read more

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A number of distinguished Africans, representing a broad range of disciplines ask what will the continent look like in 2057, a century on from independence in Ghana and Sudan? They set out to provide some 'credible alternative visions', challenging the persistent image of Africa as a continent in crisis.North America: Heinemann; Kenya: EAEP ... Read more

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This is an Intermediate Level story in a series of ELT readers comprising a wide range of titles - some original and some simplified - from modern and classic novels, and designed to appeal to all age-groups, tastes and cultures. The books are divided into five levels: Starter Level, with about 300 basic words; Beginner Level (600 basic words); Elementary Level (1100); Intermediate Level (1600); and Upper Level (2200). Some of the titles are also available on cassette. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Human tragedy amid the clash of civilisations
Chinua Achebe is an accomplished Nigerian writer. "Things Fall Apart" is reputed by Wikipedia to be the most widely read book in modern African literature and has made Achebe the most widely translated African writer of all time.

The book deals with the impact of a foreign culture (the British Empire expanding into Nigeria) on the traditional ways of life and tribal beliefs of the Ibo people of Nigeria.History tells us who inevitably won that "clash of civilisations".

In the book the destruction of a tribal community comes at the hands of well-meaning, but fundamentally arrogant, Christian missionaries, supported by the "civilising mission" of government officials.

Many of the old Ibo beliefs and customs (at least as described by Achebe) were violent and superstitious.The superstition should be no problem for any objective reader - after all, it is simply a different form of spiritual belief to that which most Western readers will be used to, no worse and no better than any of the major religions, just different.

Unfortunately for the Ibo, it was these very beliefs that the christian missionaries found repugnant - perhaps more so than the violence.

However, it is the violence of men towards one another and towards women and children that will appal most modern readers.

Of course, this is a work of fiction and the non-Nigerian reader has no hope of knowing how realistic is the traditional village culture portrayed.Nigerian readers will immediately be able to put it into the correct perspective.

Without any other cultural background or context, books like this in the hands of the unthinking reader can perpetuate stereotypes and even do harm.There is already too much ignorance of, and intolerance to, the customs of other people.One has only to think of today's general ignorance and stereotyping of Muslims - and the general ignorance and stereotyping of Russians during the Cold War.

Sadly, traditional customs and beliefs, even languages, are under increasing threat from the blandishments of the modern world.This is a pity.Most cultural beliefs have a valid place in the human community and are worthy of preservation, as an historical and anthropological record if nothing else.Many of the social and other problems that beset traditional peoples can be laid at the feet of the destruction of customs and beliefs.

The challenge is not only to protect traditional customs, but also to do so in ways that are consistent with preventing violence in those communities.It is difficult, for example, to make any case in favour of female circumcision.

On another level the book can be read as the human tragedy of the principal character, Okonkwo.To our eyes he is a flawed figure, but to his tribe he was an important man.

Achebe's style is very spare and the text is pared to the bone, with few adjectives and adverbs.Sentence constructions are very simple - but not naïve or unsophisticated.Hemingway and other famous writers used a similar style.I like it very much.

I found it helpful to read the Wikipedia entries after I had started the book.This gave me some background and made my reading a more meaningful exercise.

This book made me confront important matters: the clash of civilisations and comparative spiritual beliefs."Things Fall Apart" is an important book and worth reading.

Impressively unbiased novel, for the most part
Ironically, I had picked up Things Fall Apart from the local library just before it happened to be assigned to me for a history class. I suppose I had good, if accidental, foresight. As others have said, Things Fall Apart is a relatively short novel told in a straightforward yet elegant manner. The voice works well for this particular narrative, much of which focuses on the customs and rites of the Ibo people in the village in which the protagonist, Okonkwo, lives.

What I find most impressive about Things Fall Apart is the way it renders all perspectives; the book doesn't seem to glorify or demonize any one culture, and it really doesn't pick sides. The book deals with an Ibo tribe as well as a group of European imperialists, and it would be easy to depict one faction as being pure and noble and the other as evil or backwards. However, Things Fall Apart takes the high road by illustrating the complex continuum of both: Yes, the Ibo people have some practices which might seem "savage" to our modern Western mindsets, but they also have strong senses of morality and righteousness and Achebe depicts this admirably. Likewise, yes, some of the European imperialists seem cruel and dismissive of the Ibo people, but others of them genuinely seem to be motivated by the interest of evangelizing and doing what they believe to be right and noble.

While the book itself may seem like a simplistic tale, there are deep, complex issues at work here--issues that lead to questions with no easy answers which Achebe, for his part, does not attempt to supply. That's just as well. Sometimes a book need only ask the questions and allow readers to come to their own conclusions. So what is Things Fall Apart about? Well, ostensibly, the book can be divided into two halves. The first half centres on the life of a man named Okonkwo, his wives, his children, and the practices of his tribe. Some readers will complain, and have complained, that the lack of focused, singular plot in the first half of the novel is a problem. I disagree. I don't believe that all works of fiction are required to have one singular, specific plot route and I believe it was Achebe's intent to set the stage for what happens in the second part of the novel. In the first half of the novel, the readers get acquainted with Okonkwo and the Ibo people.

Meanwhile, the second half of Things Fall Apart focuses on Okonkwo's exile and his return from exile. For seven years, he has to leave his village and return to his mother's village (I won't say why here, so as not to spoil the detail for prospective readers), and when he comes back, he finds that European imperialism has drastically altered his own village, Umuofia. This leads to the novel's main conflict. Achebe renders the culture clash in a very intriguing manner, one which left me unsure of how I felt about the various events that unfolded. Because the earlier chapters showed the Ibo culture in such detail, considerable sympathy is placed on them, but a Western reader will also be inclined to agree with some of the Western views (not all, I should hope). For example, in Ibo culture, twins are considered evil, so they're left out in the forest to die. However, when the Europeans arrive, they begin saving twins. Who is right? Is it right to trample on another culture if it means satisfying what your culture considers the greater good? Like I said, this novel asks some difficult questions, and there are no easy answers.

Okonkwo is not a typical protagonist. He does not show compassion to others. He can be downright cruel, and he beats his wives and sons when they displease him. Yet, Okonkwo has reasons for what he does (not that it necessarily makes him right, but it does make his perspective understandable); he is upholding what he believes to be an ideal of Strength. In his own mind, he's a hero. And Okonkwo is not totally a monster; indeed, there are times when a hint of human feeling seeps through. I found his wives and children similarly compelling, but painted in brush strokes, such that much of their lives and personalities are not shown. What is shown is enough to whet your appetite for more.

I docked this novel one star, and I made this decision for two reasons. The first is because I believe the transition between the book's two halves is somewhat unshaky. I understand the need for a transition, but I think Achebe could've handled it somewhat more gracefully. As it is, I feel he plowed through and forced Okonkwo to leave under fairly flimsy and dubious, abrupt circumstances. The second reason I took off a star is because towards the end, the book stops being so evenhanded, and some of the missionaries turn Evil. At least, this is how I perceived it. What one of the Europeans says at the end of the novel seems almost like a caricature; read it and you'll see what I mean. Before, I thought Achebe was doing such an admirable job of showing the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, but in the end, "things fall apart".

Even so, the book is good and thought-provoking. I recommend it. It's a fast read. Although it is not a happy novel, I never at any point found it oppressingly, suffocatingly depressing. Perhaps the lovely yet simple prose helped to keep the events of the novel from being too overwhelmingly unhappy. Everything transpires as if in a song or a dream. I disagree with reviewers who say that Achebe portrayed the Ibo people as "savages". If you saw that in the novel, I think it's because you are analyzing them with your own values. I didn't see that Achebe intended that at all. I did not feel that Achebe passed value judgments on the Ibo people, and for the most part, he restrained his judgments of the European imperialists as well. ... Read more