SOURCE: “Linguistic Power: Encounter with Chinua Achebe,” in Christian Century, Vol. 114, No. 9, March 12, 1997, pp. 260–61.

In the following essay, Gallagher discusses Achebe's decision to write Things Fall Apart in English.

While studying English literature at the University of Ibadan, Chinua Achebe was appalled by the “superficial picture” of Nigeria that he found in many novels and resolved to write something that viewed his country “from the inside.” The stunning result was Things Fall Apart, a novel that demonstrates the linguistic and social sophistication of precolonial African societies.

First published in 1958, the book's account of the gradual destruction of a traditional Igbo village brings to mind Yeats's lines, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” Employing such anomalous traditions as African proverbs and Greek dramatic structure, Achebe lyrically portrays the destruction wrought by the complex intermingling of Westernization, colonization, Christianization, indigenous beliefs and...