Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Achebe’s critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man’s futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political and religious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.
With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
“[Achebe] is one of world literature’s great humane voices.” —Times Literary Supplement
“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama
“Achebe’s influence should go on and on . . . teaching and reminding that all humankind is one.” —The Nation
“The first novel in English which spoke from the interior of an African character, rather than portraying the African as exotic, as the white man would see him.” —Soyinka
“The Founding Father of the African novel in English.” —The Guardian
(Group read suggestion from Julie Jacobs, book club moderator.)