Things Fall Apart

Hardcover, 181 pages

English language

Published July 12, 1992 by Alfred A. Knopf.

ISBN:: 978-0-679-44623-1

THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have …

THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within. (front flap)

42 editions

yanez reviewed Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Heinemann African Writers Series; Red Classics)

Things do fall apart indeed - a great book and a great, sorrowful story

No rating

This is great African literature, and it's great literature.

It's an adventure book, to me, that punches you in the stomach. And if you don't feel the punch, it just means that you're not able to read.

This book called me from the bookstore shelf a few times in the last months. It's the huge bookstore in Roma Termini train station, and the copy I finally bought last week was always the same one. I did not know this author, nor I heard about this book. I'm sure many will read this as a piece of "african literature", and even if it is, I believe it is foolishness to treat it as such, just like it feels strange when I hear talk about the Divine Comedy as a "european masterpiece". It's a great book, with a great, sorrowful story, full of people and lives.

This is great African literature, and it's great literature.

It's an adventure book, to me, that punches you in the stomach. And if you don't feel the punch, it just means that you're not able to read.

This book called me from the bookstore shelf a few times in the last months. It's the huge bookstore in Roma Termini train station, and the copy I finally bought last week was always the same one. I did not know this author, nor I heard about this book. I'm sure many will read this as a piece of "african literature", and even if it is, I believe it is foolishness to treat it as such, just like it feels strange when I hear talk about the Divine Comedy as a "european masterpiece". It's a great book, with a great, sorrowful story, full of people and lives.

Subjects

Men
Achebe, Chinua - Prose & Criticism
Fiction - General
Fiction
Nigeria
Literary
Fiction / Literary
British
Igbo (African people)