Chinua Achebe was known as the Father of African Literature. His debut novel Things Fall Apart was published by the Heinemann's African Writers Series in 1958 and since then has been translated into 50 languages and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
I picked up my copy of the book at the recent West Africa
exhibition at the British Library, a celebration of West African history and
art. A first edition of the book was on display in a section devoted to African
literature and again accolades shone down on Achebe.
Things Fall Apart is held up as a classic and when reading a classic you are expected to love it
and I did. What I enjoyed the most was Achebe’s deliberate style of writing. It
felt like every word had been thought out and measured. While the life of Umuofia
was related, and Achebe described the food preparations by the women of the
tribe, the meetings of the egwugwu* and the changing seasons, every word carefully
was recited as if from memory, like a folktale passed on to generations.
It is evident from the title that novel is about the collapse
of something. The precise oration about the tribe’s lives remains solid like
the walls of their red dirt huts until a force comes into the village and shakes
apart their structure. In the final chapter the tribe’s people language is berated
for using “superfluous words” – a heartrending moment which encapsulates a breakdown
in translation and understanding.
Simple yet provocative, the tale reads like an extended
proverb. Although seemingly straightforward and easy to comprehend, it opens up
a lot of questions.
*If you want a scare, look up some pictures of these!
