"Since its publication in 1958, Chinua Achebe's Things fall apart has won global critical and popular acclaim. Offering a hitherto unlimned picture of a traditional culture, it is both a moving story of the coming of colonialism and a powerful and complex political statement on the nature of cross-cultural encounter. The novel has been immensely influential as the progenitor of a whole movement in fiction, drama, and poetry focusing on the re-evaluation of traditional cultures and postcolonial tensions. It enjoys a pre-eminent position as a foundational text of postcolonial studies. This collection, originating in a conference held in London to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the novel's first publication, opens with a fascinating, insightful, and wide-ranging interview with Achebe. The essays that following explore contemporary critical responses and the novel's historical and cultural contexts. Achebe's influence on the latest generation of Nigerian writers is discussed in essays devoted to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Another essay examines the radical feminist response to the novel in the work of the francophone Algerian writer Assia Djebar, another the illustrations accompa
For young readers
Book data: Open Library