Things Fall Apart
1958 novel by Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart is the 1958 debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. Set in Colonial Nigeria, it portrays the story of Okonkwo, a traditional and influential leader of the fictional Igbo clan of Umuofia, who opposes colonialism and early Christianity. Written when Achebe was working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, it was first published in London by Heinemann on 17 June 1958.
It was later followed by No Longer at Ease in 1960 and Arrow of God in 1964, which together make up the "African trilogy". The novel's title was taken from a verse of "The Second Coming", a 1919 poem by Irish poet W. B. Yeats.
Things Fall Apart is regarded as a milestone in African literature. It gained critical acclaim and popularity upon publication, and has been translated into over fifty languages, making it one of the most translated works of literature in the world. It was listed on Time's "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".
The novel has had several adaptations, including Okonkwo, a 1961 radio drama by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and Things Fall Apart, a 1971 film which starred Princess Elizabeth of Tooro.
Plot
Okonkwo is a famous man in Umuofia.
“Things Fall Apart” enters the record as 1958 novel by Chinua Achebe. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Things, Fall and Apart can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Things Fall Apart” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Things, Fall and Apart provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q622400. VIAF identifies the subject as 177467671. The Library of Congress control number is n88645469. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1960, 1964 and 1919.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Things Fall Apart” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.