266
WHAT IS GOOD
AMONG ONE PEOPLE
IS AN ABOMINATION
WITH OTHERS
THINGS FALL APART (1958), CHINUA ACHEBE
P
ublished in 1958, Chinua
Achebe’s slim volume of
less than 150 pages, Things
Fall Apart, is one of the earliest
novels to offer a mode of expression
to indigenous writers in Nigeria,
and was an instrument in the
formation of a dazzling canon of
literature. This multilayered story
of a fictionalized tribal village and
its cataclysmic contact with British
colonizers in the late 19th century
has since become the world’s most
widely read African novel, selling
more than 12 million copies in over
50 languages. The story told in
Things Fall Apart has a resonance
for all of the world’s traditional
cultures torn apart by invasion.IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
Nigerian voicesBEFORE
1952 Amos Tutuola tells a
Yoruba folklore story in English
in The Palm-Wine Drinkard.1954 Cyprian Ekwensi gains
international attention with
People of the City.AFTER
1960 Wole Soyinka’s play A
Dance of the Forests critiques
present-day corruption through
the nation’s mythological past.2002 Helon Habila depicts a
new generation living in Lagos
under a military regime in
Waiting for an Angel.2006 Half of a Yellow Sun,
set during the Biafran War,
confirms Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie as an exceptional
new voice and wins the 2007
Orange Prize for Fiction.US_266-269_FallApart.indd 266 08/10/2015 13:09