Chinua Achebe

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe died last week, leaving us with several novels that described the effects of Western customs and values on traditional African society.  His satire and his keen ear for spoken language made him one of the most highly esteemed African writers in English.



Achebe wrote his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), while working as the head of Nigerian Broadcasting Service. The story of a traditional village "big man" Okonkwo, and his downfall has been translated into some 50 languages. Okonkwo is an ambitious and powerful leader of an Igbo community, who counts on physical strength and courage. His life is good: his compound is large, he has no troubles with his wives, his garden grows yams, and he is respected by his fellow villagers. When Okonkwo accidentally kills a clansman, he is banished from the village for seven years. But the vehicle for his downfall is his blindness to circumstances and the missionary church, which brings with it the new authority of the British District Commissioner. The story is set in the 1890s, when missionaries and colonial government made its intrusion into Igbo society. In this process Okonkwo is destroyed, because his unwillingness to change set him apart from the community and he is fighting alone against colonialism. Achebe took the title of the book from William Butler Yates's The Second Coming - "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
 
Chinua Achebe's body of work includes:
Things Fall Apart (1958)
No Longer at Ease (1960)
Arrow of God (1964)
Man of the People (1966)
Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
Girls at War (1972)
Beware, Soul Brother (1972, poems)

and books for Children:
How the Leopard Got his Claws (1972)
The Flute (1977)
Chike and the River (1966) 

Click here for his numerous non-fiction books.

If you're looking for something different to read, we recommend Chinua Achebe!!