KDL Recommends

Things Fall Apart: A Novel

ISBN: 0385474547

Title: Things Fall Apart: A Novel

Author: Chinua Achebe

KDL Description:

Nigeria
Traces the growing friction between village leaders and Europeans determined to save the heathen souls of Africa. But its hero, a noble man who is driven by destructive forces, speaks a universal tongue.

Amazon Description:

This is Chinua Achebe’s classic novel, with more than two million copies sold since its first U.S. publication in 1969. Combining a richly African story with the author’s keen awareness of the qualities common to all humanity, Achebe here shows that he is “gloriously gifted, with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent” (Nadine Gordimer).

Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world. The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo’s world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries.

These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.