Further Readings

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

The Second Coming
by W. B. Yeats

 

The following are selected resources about Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart:

Biographical Sources:

Booker, M. Keith, ed. The Chinua Achebe Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003.

Africana Library Reference
PR9387.9.A3 Z459 2003


Ezenwa-Ohaeto. Chinua Achebe: A Biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Africana Library
PR9387.9.A3 Z66x 1997

Uris Library
PR9387.9.A3 Z66x 1997

Killam, G.D. “Chinua Achebe,” Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers. Ed. Bernth Linfors and Reinhard Sander. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale, 1992.

Uris Library Reference
PS129D55v.117

Literature Resource Center
(Includes the full text of the Dictionary of Literary Biography)
Cornell NetID required

Criticism and Interpretation:

Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'", Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism / Joseph Conrad. Ed. Richard Kimbrough. 3rd ed. W.W. Norton & Co., 1988. 251-262.

Uris Library
PR6005.O58 H4 1988

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Introduction. Things Fall Apart. By Chinua Achebe. New York: Knopf, 1992.

Africana Library
PR9387.9 .A3 T5x 1992

Hotel Administration Library
PR9387.9 .A3 T5 1992

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a former Cornell faculty member.

“Chinua Achebe,” The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: The Western Tradition. General Ed. Sarah Lawall. 7th ed. Vol. 2, W.W. Norton & Co. New York: 1999. 2060-2065.

Uris Library
PN6014.N66x 1999

Ogbaa, Kalu. Understanding Things Fall Apart: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Uris Library
PR9387.9.A3 T5365x 1999

Ohadike, Don. "Igbo Culture and History". Introduction.
Things Fall Apart. By Chinua Achebe. Oxford; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational, 1996.

Africana Library
PR9898.N69 A176 1996

Olin Library
PR9387.9.A17 T4 1996

Don Ohadike is a Cornell faculty member and former director of the Africana Studies and Research Center.

Research in African Literatures Vol. 32, Issue 3, Fall 2001:

Chinua Achebe at Seventy

Irele, Abiola. Homage to Chinua Achebe. Research in African Literatures
32.3 (2001) 1-2.

Gikandi, Simon. Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Culture. Research in African Literatures
32.3 (2001) 3-8.

Williams, Adebayo. The Autumn of the Literary Patriarch: Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Remembering. Research in African Literatures
32.3 (2001) 8-21.

Olaniyan, Tejumola. Chinua Achebe and an Archaeology of the Postcolonial African State. Research in African Literatures
32.3 (2001) 22-29.

Moore, Gerald, 1924- Chinua Achebe: A Retrospective. Research in African Literatures
32.3 (2001) 29-32.

Cornell locations: Africana Library
PL8010 .R43

Olin Library
PL8010 .R43

Project Muse
(Includes the full text of the journal, Research in African Literatures.)
Cornell NetID required

Visual Resources:

Chinua Achebe. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities, 1994.

Africana Library Video 319

Chinua Achebe: African Literature as Celebration. Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1999.

Africana Library Video 460

Chinua Achebe: Africa's Voice. Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1999.

Africana Library Video 461

Audio Book:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart [sound recording]. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, p1997, c1959. 6 Compact discs. Unabridged. Narrated by Peter Francis James.

Olin Library Media Center
PR9387.9.A3 T5 1997

Chinua Achebe:

Novels:

If you enjoyed reading Things Fall Apart (1959), please be aware that it is the first book of Chinua Achebe's African trilogy, which continues in the novels, No Longer at Ease (1960), and Arrow of God (1964).

Poetry:

Author/Creator: Achebe, Chinua. Title: Beware, soul-brother, and other poems.
Published: Enugu [Nigeria] Nwankwo-Ifejika [c1971]
Description: 38 p. 22 cm.
Location: Africana Library (Africana Center)
Call Number: PR9898.N69 A1701


Author/Creator: Achebe, Chinua.
Title: Christmas in Biafra and other poems.
Published: Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1973.
Description: [1st ed.]92 p. 22 cm.
Location: Africana Library (Africana Center)
Call Number: PR9898.N69 A1702 1975
Location: Olin Library
Call Number: PR9387.9.A17 C5

See Links for additional information resources on the Web.