Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)

Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a 'strong man' of an Ibo village in Nigeria. These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul, and concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world.

The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, as a leader of the Ibo village of Umuofia, Nigeria, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries, and their profound impact on African society, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.

Things Fall Apart is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within. Window to a world long gone and to the challenges and pains that come with changing aged-long tribal social life and structure and replacing it with modern Christian European way of life. Introduction by K. Anthony Appiah.

A trilogy of works chronicling the fate of one African community, continued in "Arrow of God" and "No Longer at Ease".
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