DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:26th Jan '06

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in another edition too:

Things Fall Apart cover

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

A worldwide bestseller and the first part of Achebe's African Trilogy, Things Fall Apart is the compelling story of one man's battle to protect his community against the forces of change


Okonkwo is the greatest wrestler and warrior alive, and his fame spreads throughout West Africa like a bush-fire in the harmattan. But when he accidentally kills a clansman, things begin to fall apart. Then Okonkwo returns from exile to find missionaries and colonial governors have arrived in the village. With his world thrown radically off-balance he can only hurtle towards tragedy.

First published in 1958, Chinua Achebe's stark, coolly ironic novel reshaped both African and world literature, and has sold over ten million copies in forty-five languages. This arresting parable of a proud but powerless man witnessing the ruin of his people begins Achebe's landmark trilogy of works chronicling the fate of one African community, continued in Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease.

'His courage and generosity are made manifest in the work' Toni Morrison

'The writer in whose company the prison walls fell down' Nelson Mandela

'A great book, that bespeaks a great, brave, kind, human spirit' John Updike


With an Introduction by Biyi Bandele

ISBN: 9780141023380

Dimensions: 181mm x 112mm x 15mm

Weight: 146g

208 pages