Things Fall Apart

Achebe's novel of Okonkwo and Igbo village life as missionaries and colonial officers arrive.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Chinua Achebe

type

Postcolonial novel

era

Decolonization (1958)

language

English

setting

Umuofia, Igboland, Nigeria

parts

3 parts

Relative Scale in Novels

Core Principles & Analysis

• Published in 1958, it became the most widely read work of African fiction.
• The title comes from Yeats's poem 'The Second Coming'.
• Achebe wrote it in English to answer colonial depictions of Africa.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Things Fall Apart