Things Fall Apart: Why You Should Read It

Why Things Fall Apart still matters — Achebe wrote the novel that rewrote Africa in its own voice. 20M copies, 50+ languages, and still urgent.

Things Fall Apart: The Novel That Wrote Africa Back Into Its Own History

When Chinua Achebe was a student in Nigeria in the 1950s, he was assigned Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness . He read it and decided, essentially, that Africa deserved a novel in its own voice. He wrote that novel himself.

The first line of Things Fall Apart contains the book's entire ambition:

"Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond."