Reading List: Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Hello readers and welcome to the second entry in this year’s Reading List. As mentioned, now that the fiction list is back (and committed to reading more contemporary female authors) I am trying to read more BIPOC authors. To that end I decided to read one of the all-time classics of African fiction, Chinua Achebe’s stunning 1958 novel Things Fall Apart. I have been meaning to reconnect with this book since coming across Achebe’s lecture deconstructing Conrad’s Heart of Darkness back when I tackled that influential work in 2017. I was also assigned to read this book during an African Studies course in my college years; regretfully as a sluggish young student I failed to read much of it. After grappling with a fairly difficult and elaborate first read of the new list it was somewhat pleasant to encounter Achebe’s free-flowing and simplified language in this volume.

The novel has gained an immense amount of prestige over the decades since its publication, and for good reason: it is quite possibly the first African novel of its time and has influenced generations of authors over that period. The story of both the village of Umuofia and one of its “strong men” Okonkwo, it is also a study in colonization and what happened under its legacy. Not only do we see the culture of the village and its people, we see it from a perspective of understanding and one that is not western-centric. While some might consider the culture of the village (and that especially of Okonkwo) as chauvinistic it is important to understand that not everyone of the village acts this way, and women play an important role throughout the society. This becomes somewhat ironic as halfway through the story Okonkwo is banished to his maternal side’s village due to his hand in a tragic accident.

I also read this book in a different ironic sense given that I was raised in a church that espoused much of what the white colonial Christians do in the third part of the novel. I was taught that our church needed to send missionaries to these parts of the world to spread our version of the faith just as Mr. Brown does when he establishes a church within the tribal society. This becomes problematic as clashes within the English society render the Ibo people supplicant before the new colonial masters, and turned the notions of how I was raised on their head even more than they had over the last few years of my life. This is the power of good writing and shows how such language can affect thought and reconsideration over the life of both the geopolitical stages of the world and in people’s minds.

This is a highly regarded novel and I’d wager most of my readers have either heard of it or read it, but if you haven’t I would definitely recommend it as it’s one of the most influential of the (few) non-western books I’ve read for the list. Up next I’m taking a turn toward the contemporary (and female) with the 2020 novel A Burning by Megha Majumadar. As always, thanks for joining me on this reading journey.