Things Fall Apart Makes List Of 50 Most Influential Books

Chinua Achebe

 

Entering into its 52nd anniversary, Chinua Achebe’s classic novel, Things Fall Apart,continues to garner a string of laurels around the world. The latest honor for this, the most widely read and translated novel by an African author, came recently when scholar Andrew Taylor named Things Fall Apart as one of the 50 most “most important and influential books in the history of the world.

” Mr. Taylor states, “The theme of preserving cultural history in the face of Western domination in [Things Fall Apart] gave voice to the oppressed in Africa and caught the attention of the world. This novel, written in 1958, is still widely read and studied as an example of the damage of colonialism.”

In 2008, the novel’s 50th anniversary became a global celebration, with events on all the continents, from Abuja through Sydney to Mumbai. To mark the milestone, Professor Achebe’s publishers in the US issued a commemorative edition of the novel, which is already translated into more than sixty languages around the world. In addition, a Nigerian publisher, Book Craft, issued a wonderfully illustrated coffee table edition of the novel.


Mr. Achebe, who is the Mariana Fisher Professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, is at work on a much-awaited non-fiction book. The new book is expected to cover much of the author’s life, including vignettes about the Biafran War.

Meanwhile, Mr. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as well as other works of fiction – among them, Arrow of God, A Man of the People, and Anthills of the Savannah – attract a growing readership and are widely used as texts at all levels of education.