Things Fall Apart (1958)
The wrestler and warrior Okonkwo's downfall as missionaries and colonial rule reach his Igbo village of Umuofia
Literature · Novelists
Chinua Achebe
1930–2013 · Nigerian
Postcolonial literature; African literature in English
Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet and critic, often called the father of modern African literature. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), portrays Igbo society and the tragedy of Okonkwo as British colonialism and Christianity arrive, and is the most widely read African novel. He supported Biafra in the Nigerian Civil War, famously attacked Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as racist, and won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007.
How to spot them
- ▸Things Fall Apart: Okonkwo, the village of Umuofia, Igbo society and colonialism
- ▸Novel titles borrowed from Yeats (Things Fall Apart) and T. S. Eliot (No Longer at Ease)
- ▸Lecture calling Joseph Conrad a racist over Heart of Darkness
- ▸Founding editor of Heinemann's African Writers Series
- ▸Biafra; memoir There Was a Country
Key works
No Longer at Ease (1960)
Okonkwo's grandson Obi, educated in England, succumbs to bribery in Lagos
Arrow of God (1964)
The chief priest Ezeulu clashes with his people and British administrators in the 1920s
A Man of the People (1966)
Satire of a corrupt post-independence politician, ending in a military coup
An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1975 (lecture))
Controversial lecture arguing that Conrad dehumanised Africans
Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
Three friends in a fictional West African military dictatorship; shortlisted for the Booker Prize
There Was a Country (2012)
Personal history of the Biafran War
Key ideas
- Wrote back against colonial portrayals of Africa, showing Igbo society as complex and dignified
- Argued that English could be adapted to carry African experience, using Igbo proverbs and oral forms
- Critique of post-independence corruption and failed leadership in Nigeria
Quick-fire facts
- •Born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in Ogidi, south-eastern Nigeria
- •Things Fall Apart takes its title from W. B. Yeats's poem The Second Coming
- •No Longer at Ease takes its title from T. S. Eliot's poem Journey of the Magi
- •Studied at University College, Ibadan, and worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation
- •Won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007
- •Twice declined the Nigerian national honour of Commander of the Federal Republic (2004 and 2011) in protest at the state of the country
- •Paralysed from the waist down after a car accident in Nigeria in 1990; later taught at Bard College and Brown University
- •Died in Boston, Massachusetts in 2013
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Sources
- Ezenwa-Ohaeto — Chinua Achebe: A Biography
- Chinua Achebe — There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra