Fifty years since its publication, Things Fall Apart has sold in excess of 8 million copies and been translated into over 30 languages – including the author’s mother tongue, Igbo.
Last year, Chinua Achebe received the Man Booker International Prize in recognition of a body of work that includes novels, critical essays, poetry, short stories, children’s books and African short story anthologies. It’s an oeuvre that is dominated by his first effort, however.
Bongani Madondo is a fan. He wrote about Achebe’s phenom-book recently, setting it against the context of African novels that came before and after it. He reflects on the cyclical nature of history, saying in his introduction, “I was rudely reminded of the regularity and repetitive rituals of existence as I arrived at the end of Chinua Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart.”
Madondo argues that this iconic work had a profound effect on a generation of – wait for it – radical chicsters! Read on:
Things Fall Apart’s disciples are folks who, like the hip-hop band The Roots, know when and how to respect its elders. This African-American band named their 1999 Grammy Award-winner after Achebe’s classic. The sort of folk inherently appreciative of the price paid by their ancestors; folks who were lynched on Billie Holiday’s sweet Magnolia trees. And yet, the generation that swears by Achebe is remarkable for its ability to distinguish between blind worship, as is often the case with most pan-Africanist political rhetoric, and critical love for a revolutionary tale.
A generation I’m both ashamed of, yet proud to belong to.
And the haunting image of a hanging, burning black male body? It ain’t nudist art baby — it’s a reflection of our debasement.
And so when “darkness and pain is all around” we ponder: was Achebe’s the most prophetic tale of our time?
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