Chinua Achebe, Things fall apart

Copyright © 2008 Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center

Chinua Achebe was undoubtedly one the greatest African writers. A precursor. His novel “Things fall apart” is the result of a feeling of revolt thus the need for an African to shed lights on the pre-colonial Africa and the shock that have been the first encounters with the West. It’s been fifty years in 2008 since the book has been published but it’s still the most-sold African novel.

The book is about a man named Okonkwo, a warrior and a talented farmer who’s willing to regain the prestige his family lost due to his lazy father. The story takes place among an Ibo tribe, one from southeast Nigeria, in the pre-colonial Africa. Chinua Achebe introduces us to a though, complex, ambitious man who is seeking personal achievement and the clan recognition. The author has that very sober way to tell the gradual rise, its peak and then the unexpected exclusion from the clan. The originality and thus strength of this novel lie in the thorough description it makes of the founding principles of that Ibo community. Beliefs, initiatory rites, funeral and wedding ceremonies all closely related to the agricultural production or justice, social values, the relations with other tribes, human sacrifices…everything in this book is recounted with lucidity. There’s no trace of prejudice, indulgence or self-whipping.

When Okonkwo is forced to exile with the whole family (including three wives) after he seriously trespassed one of the social codes, it brought him to put things into perspective, observe the hospitality of his mother’s tribe where he’s serving his sentence and perceive the first news of the arrival of the Europeans on the igbo land. That first contact between the two civilizations led to misunderstanding and violent frictions.

Things fall apart. The author then describes in the second part of the book, with great erudition, the civilization shock following the arrival of the first Christian missionaries. Chinua Achebe highlights the impact of their evangelistic message, the tension caused by the collusion between some missionaries, the colonial administration and the traditional organizations whose spiritual unity is jeopardized by the rising of the Christian community and the questioning of some practices like the infanticide of twin babies. There will be a failed attempt to initiate discussion. The rest is about pride, fear, hatred and ignorance.

I’ve rarely read a book whose author has such a good knowledge of the Christian doctrine and the African traditional beliefs. The author masters the implied philosophies beneath the frontal collision and the distance he keeps with the story make this novel remarkable. This is a very complete work which stays very accurate today. A classic.

[In 2007 Chinua Achebe received the Man Booker international Prize for his entire career, a prize which rewards the best English-writing authors. He was preceded by Ismaïl Kadare. Chinua Achebe died this year at age 83.]

Article original traduit du français par Titilayo Agbahey

Chinua Achebe, Things fall apart

Paperback: 209 pages

Publisher: Anchor (September 1, 1994) 

Language: English