Things fall Apart follows the story of Okonkwo, who belongs to the fictitious Umuofia clan. His “fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan.” The story is based on the Igbo people, from whom the author Achebe himself has descended.
What is amazing is in a book as concise as this, you get an authentic peek into the lives and beliefs of people, in pre-colonial times and how things started to change with the onset of an utterly new system – administrative and religiously speaking.
The resistance, survival and situation of age old tribes and their customs in the face of missionary activity, rings similar, sharp bells across many of the colonies around the world.
This book is a great place to start, if you (like me), are new to this subject and yet, have been a “subject”, through generations before you, of colonisation.
‘Achebe writes so economically and pithily, that he has managed to say more about the genesis of modern Africa than any other living author’
Alastair Niven, Independent
Storytellers create history
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is indeed a cornerstone of African literature. His work not only redefined African storytelling but also challenged Western narratives about Africa.
Achebe’s novel was a direct response to Western depictions of Africa, such as those in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which portrayed Africans as primitive or voiceless.
Things Fall Apart centered African perspectives, humanizing Igbo society and exposing the complexities of its traditions, governance, and spirituality.
Picture of Achebe with his book in two different covers. Courtesy of Santa Clara university website
Freedom and its boat had arrived. And out of the freedom boat, almost imperceptible, just behind – some would say hand in hand with freedom itself, stepped memory, the vengeful, unforgiving brigand of all time. ‘It is the storyteller,’ Achebe has said, ‘who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have – otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.’ Memory heals, it regenerates.
Biyi Bandele