A reflection on Things Fall Apart

This is an Opinioncolumn by Elizabeth Iwunwa, who has been living, studying and working on Prince Edward Island since 2014. For more information aboutCBC's Opinion section, please see theFAQ.

It is impossible to discuss Black history without discussing African history, as Africa has the largest concentration of Black people in the world.

In describing the triumphs and turbulence of Africa, Nigeriathe most populous nationis a prominent feature.

The history of Nigeria intersects with the exploits of the British Empire, which colonized Nigeria and other parts of Africa until independence movements began between 1945 and 1960.

African scholars, revolutionaries, and citizens who had received tutelage from colonial masters used the very tools of their suppression to liberate their consciousness and continent from imperial rule.

Literature was one such tool.

2 worlds colliding

Chinua Achebe, revered as the father of modern African literature, is said to have taken the language of colonial masters and expanded it until it was fit for his own purposes. He vividly painted with words the texture of life of the Igbo people, an ethnic group in the country.

His seminal work of fiction, Things Fall Apart, chronicled from an African perspectivethe interruption of communal life in precolonial Nigeria byBritish colonialists.

The coming of the British to Africa caused the continent to tether on the precipice of traditional culture and modernity as understood, fashioned, and propagated by colonialists.

The chapter and the entire book portrays colonization itself as a sort of barbarism, for who is it that barges into another's home and dictates how they must live? Elizabeth Iwunwa

Achebe captured this turmoil and disorientation, showing Africans as a people who had a way and an understanding of the world before the crude interjection of colonial masters.

His novel detailed what was lost as two worlds collided.

The 22nd chapter of Things Fall Apart portrays this tension of a people trying to maintain the spiritual practices of their forebears while at once embracing the realities of a new world constructed without their consultation.

They were caught in the middle, now judging themselves by standards hitherto unknown; dwelling in their fatherland but feeling the ground beneath them shifting.

In this chapter, we encounter Mr. Smith whose approach to Christianization one of the colonization tools of the British Empire is unfeeling and condescending and abrasive; we see a man full of pride and lacking in the wisdom and charity he ought to embody.

The chapter and the entire book portrays colonization itself as a sort of barbarism, for who is it that barges into another's home and dictates how they must live?

Members of the human family

Things Fall Apart was published in 1958 and has become a permanent fixture in the African literary canon. The language was simple, but an obvious product of careful observation and deep knowledge of the people's spirit.

It was a resounding response to other works that dominated theliterary imagination up to that point, which described Africans as a people who had no systems or sophistication.

The book did not so much give Africans a humanity as it did emphasize and insist on the humanity of Africans, and therefore, the commonality of their experience of loss and joy and despair and the complication of life as members of the human family.

Its publication a few years shy of Nigeria's independence negotiated a space for soon-to-be Nigerians to reflect on the life they had before their encounter with European imperialism.

In celebrating Black history, it is important to note that before interactions with Europe and the Americas, Black people had no knowledge of this categorization until they encountered those who were simply different. Therefore, theyhad rich cultures, complex lives, effective systems, and variegated histories independent of that contrastingEuropean gaze.

Things Fall Apart sold 20 million copies worldwide and, by its example, gave generations of African writers permission to create worlds resembling theirs and narratives fit for their own purposes.

The author of resounding global renown, Chinua Achebe, received an honorary degree from the University of Prince Edward Island in 1976. Even in death, his work remains, for all time, an essential witness to the depth, expanse, and importance of Black history.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of.You can read more stories here.