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

“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.

This book calls for a major paradigm shift in the church’s thinking and practice if the church is to engage with the upcoming generations of the third decade of this fast-changing twenty-first century. Just as the church has had to adapt to a changing context in the past, it now needs to engage seriously with this post-enlightenment, post-human, techno-centric age of artificial intelligence. However, the church also needs to recall its counter-cultural, prophetic role, following Elijah, Jeremiah, Amos, Jesus, and Paul, challenging society as it faces complex dilemmas raised by technology-driven development in these unprecedented times. The church will have to acknowledge unaddressed weaknesses in the past: of identifying with established power rather than vulnerability and the marginalized; of depending on a hierarchical, ministerial order at the expense of the ministry of every believer; of acquiescing to materialist, anthropocentric, and consumerist growth as an undisputable norm. This book develops the vision of a church engaged in the mission of God: of welcoming technological development but with an eye on kingdom values; of promoting innovation, so long as it does not result in a growth of inequality, or at the expense of the environment; of pointing towards a humanity that deepens its relationships with its Creator, its fellow humans, and its environment. The author calls on grassroots believers to reflect and act, within their local communities, as inspired and empowered daughters and sons of God, in the knowledge that following Jesus Christ provides a radical new paradigm for living, learning and leading, in and through these times of epochal change.