Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Nigeria at a crossroads

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel Things Fall Apart is likely the most widely read work of Black African literature among English-language readers worldwide (as opposed to white African writers like Algerian Albert Camus or South Africa’s J. M. Coetzee). Achebe wrote the novel in English, and it was published by Heinemann as the first novel in their African Writers Series, a series that would eventually encompass about 300 books. Things Fall Apart takes place in a rural village of the indigenous Igbo people (sometimes spelled Ibo), when Nigeria was a British colony (1914–1960).

Okonkwo lives in the village of Umuofia. Though he came from humble beginnings, through hard work, ambition, and physical strength, he has elevated himself to a position of high status within his clan. He lives with his family of three wives and several children in a mud brick-walled compound of several huts, where they raise crops and some livestock. To settle a conflict with a neighboring village, a boy from another clan is given to Umuofia as a hostage. The leaders of the Umuofia clan charge Okonkwo with the care of this boy, Ikemefuna, whom he raises as if the boy were his own son. In a twist worthy of a Greek tragedy, however, this act ends up setting in motion a chain reaction of karmic retribution that threatens Okonkwo’s downfall.

The second half of the novel deals with the encroachment of British culture into this isolated village. Christian missionaries and government bureaucrats arrive, a few of whom are white, the rest being Nigerians from outside the clan. Achebe describes how Christianity wedges its way into the Igbo people’s lives, garnering some earnest converts, while others cling to the traditional gods and customs. Okonkwo is firmly on the side of the old-schoolers who resist the influence of the whites. As depicted by Achebe, Igbo culture places high importance on a traditional conception of masculinity, and Okonkwo considers any man who deviates from the old ways to be “womanly.” In this clash between tradition and modernity, Achebe lets the reader see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, he clearly shows the iniquity and brutality of British colonialism in Nigeria. On the other hand, he implies that elements of Christianity offer a more compassionate alternative to some of the restrictive superstitions, prejudicial thinking, and more violent aspects of traditional Igbo culture. Achebe’s views on Nigerian independence are clear in this book, but his feelings towards the Christian church are not so clear cut.

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe gives readers a vivid look at traditional indigenous life in Nigeria. This contrasts with his fellow Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, who writes mostly about urban intellectuals in Nigeria. Achebe grew up amid both Igbo and Christian traditions and went on to become a university professor and one of his nation’s leading man of letters. For most of the book, Achebe’s writing gives the reader a feeling of being a member of the Umuofia clan. The last few chapters on Christianity and imperialism, however, feel a little more like they were written from the perspective of a university professor looking at Igbo culture from the outside.

One main reason why I read the literature of foreign nations is in hopes of gaining an understanding of the lives, cultures, and perspectives of people from other parts of the world. Things Fall Apart is certainly satisfying in that regard. This isn’t just the Western literary tradition transplanted to an exotic locale. This is a quintessentially African work of literature and a very fine novel by any standard of world literature.