Things Fall apart – Chinua Achebe

Published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, this is seen as the seminal African novel in English - none has been so influential, not only on African literature, but on literature around the world. Its most striking feature is to create a complex and sympathetic portrait of a traditional village culture in Africa. Achebe is trying not only to inform the outside world about Ibo cultural traditions, but to remind his own people of their past and to assert that it had contained much of value. He paints a relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism, avoiding depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, he sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. Re-issued in 2006 by Penguin as a Book of the Month, it is still a moving and rewarding read not only for the depiction of Ibo culture, but  for the eternal issues which it raises.

10 copies