Author
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart is Chinua Achebe's 1958 debut novel and a landmark of historical fiction from Africa. Set in the late nineteenth century among the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, it follows Okonkwo, a celebrated wrestler and farmer in the fictional village of Umuofia. He is driven by fear of resembling his failed father. The book shows a complex, self-governing society with its own law, religion and family life. It then shows how missionaries and British colonial administrators unsettle that society from within. Achebe wrote in English but shaped the novel with Igbo proverbs and storytelling rhythms. In doing so he answered the colonial fiction that had portrayed Africans as a backdrop. It remains a standard text in world literature classrooms and book groups.