Things Fall Apart

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  • Author: Chinua Achebe
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • Catalogue: 111379
  • Size: 13x20cm
First published in 1958, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is one of the modern age's defining books - the book that marked African independence and in one leap created a powerful, vivid Nigerian literature.



The novel tells the story of Okonkwo, an important man in the Obi tribe, in the days when white men were first appearing on the scene. Through a series of events forced by his pride and fears, Okonkwo becomes exiled from the tribe at the peak of his power. While away, time passes and things slowly crumble into a new insecure shape. His position has changed, customs are dying out and the white man stalks his beloved land.

Culture, politics and the classic struggle between rigid traditionalism and the winds of change are at the centre of the tale, and although it's a book about the story of one man and his community, it is ultimately a book about the whole of Africa and about the effects of colonialism on the individual lives of people. An incomparable novel, full of colour and passion, Things Fall Apart is told in a way that still seems radical and extraordinary, with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.



Often mentioned as a leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Chinua Achebe holds an Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as more than twenty honorary doctorates from universities in England, Scotland, the U.S., Canada, and Nigeria. He is also the recipient of Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. Things Fall Apart has now been published in fifty different languages.

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