Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in World Literature

Abstract

Very few authors enter into the canon of World Literature and Chinua Achebe is one of the very few African authors in that category. His debut novel, Things Fall Apart, is in that privileged position of being acknowledged as a world classic. Doubtless so much has been written on Achebe’s classic whose fiftieth year anniversary (published 1958) was celebrated all over the world some years ago. After the renowned Nigerian author’s death on March 21, 2013, most of the tributes to the author mentioned his first and best known novel, Things Fall Apart. There is much in that novel that elicits a multiplicity of critical responses but despite the wealth of controversies, debates, praises, and other forms of critical discourse relating to the work, it is still very much open to more critical responses. Things Fall Apart is not just taught in World Literature classes but also published in Norton’s Anthology of World Literature and also in the Norton Series of World Literature texts. The novel has been translated into more than 50 languages. The focus of this chapter is to examine Things Fall Apart as a World Literature text. Why is it often used in a course on World Literature and what does its inclusion in that canon mean? Chinua Achebe has, in writing Things Fall Apart, inscribed African culture through its Igbo variant into the canvas of world culture.