THINGS FALL APART 0385474547

This is Chinua Achebe's classic novel, with more than two million copies sold since its first U.S. publication in 1969. Combining a richly African story with the author's keen awareness of the qualities common to all humanity, Achebe here shows that he is gloriously gifted, with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent. -- Nadine Gordimer .com Review One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel,Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering ofNigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. Firstpublished in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence fromGreat Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depictingpre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world inwhich violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strongsense of tradition, ritual, andsocial coherence. His Ibo protagonist,Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he hasworked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived,finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellowsin the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperousfarmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also aman who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially theyoungest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did hislittle children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. Buthis whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious godsand of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature,malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these.It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear ofhimself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.

And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He isfond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent fromanother village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young womanfrom Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom hehas too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series oftragicevents tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weaknessthat ultimately undoes him.

Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pagesor so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. Andyet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption.The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed byrepresentatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Iboculture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lostforever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs apowerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand forthe destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber From Library Journal Peter Frances James offers a superb narration of Nigerian novelist Achebe's deceptively simple 1959 masterpiece. In direct, almost fable-like prose, it depicts the rise and fall of Okonkwo, a Nigerian whose sense of manliness is more akin to that of his warrior ancestors than to that of his fellow clansmen who have converted to Christianity and are appeasing the British administrators who infiltrate their village. The tough, proud, hardworking Okonkwo is at once a quintessential old-order Nigerian and a universal character in whom sons of all races have identified the figure of their father. Achebe creates a many-sided picture of village life and a sympathetic hero. A good recording of this novel has been long overdue, and the unhurried grace and quiet dignity of James's narration make it essential for every collection.?Peter Josyph, New York Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review "Achebe is gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent." --Nadine Gordimer, "The New York Times Book Review" ""Things Fall Apart" may well be Africa's best loved novel. . . . For so many readers around the world, it is Chinua Achebe who opened up the magic casements of African fiction." --Kwame Anthony Appiah "Achebe is gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent." --Nadine Gordimer, "The New York Times Book Review" "A vivid imagination illuminates every page. . . . This novel genuinely succeeds in penetrating tribal life from the inside." --"Times Literary Supplement" First novel by Chinua Achebe, written in English and published in 1958. The novel chronicles the life of Okonkwo, the leader of an Igbo (Ibo) community, from the events leading up to his banishment from the community for accidentally killing a clansman, through the seven years of his exile, to his return.The novel addresses the problem of the intrusion in the 1890s of white missionaries and colonial government into tribal Igbo society. It describes the simultaneous disintegration of its protagonist Okonkwo and of his village. The novel was praised for its intelligent and realistic treatment of tribal beliefs and of psychological disintegration coincident with social unraveling. Things Fall Apart helped create the Nigerian literary renaissance of the 1960s.-- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature Review “Achebe is gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent.” —Nadine Gordimer, The New York Times Book Review “Things Fall Apart may well be Africa's best loved novel. . . . For so many readers around the world, it is Chinua Achebe who opened up the magic casements of African fiction.” —Kwame Anthony Appiah “Achebe is gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent.” —Nadine Gordimer, The New York Times Book Review A vivid imagination illuminates every page. . . . This novel genuinely succeeds in penetrating tribal life from the inside. —Times Literary Supplement

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. Cited in the London Sunday Times as one of the 1,000 Makers of the Twentieth Century for defining a modern African literature that was truly African and thereby making a major contribution to world literature, Chinua Achebe has published novels short stories, essays, and children's books. His volume of poetry, Christmas in Biafra, written during the Biafran War, was the joint winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Of his novels, Arrow of God won the New Statesman--Jock Campbell Award, and Anthills of the Savannah was a finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe's masterpiece, has been published in fifty different languages and has sold millions of copies in the United States since its original publication in 1958-1959. Mr. Achebe lives with his wife in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where they teach at Bard College. They have four children and three grandchildren. From the Hardcover edition.

出版社	Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
作者	Chinua Achebe