目录
Content
Chapter_1
Chapter_2
Chapter_3
Chapter_4
Chapter_5
Chapter_6
Chapter_7
Chapter_8
Chapter_9
Chapter_10
Chapter_1
I
ALSO BY CHINUA ACHEBE
Anthills of the Savannah
Arrow of God
Girls at War and Other Stories
A Man of the People
No Longer at Ease
Nonfiction
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays The Trouble With
Nigeria
Poetry Beware Soul Brother
THINGS
FALL
APART
ANCHOR BOOKS
A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC. New York
First Anchor Books Edition, 1994 Copyright ? 1959 by
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York. This edition is
published by arrangement with Reed Consumer Books. The author
and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission from Aigboje
Higo and Heinemann
Educational Books, Ltd., to reproduce the Glossary on page 211.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
by .—1st Anchor Books ed.
p. cm.
1. Nigeria—Race relations—Fiction, 1. Igbo (African people)—
Fiction. 3. Men—Nigeria—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9387.9.A3T5 1994 823—dc20 94-13429 CIP
ISBN 0-385-47454-7 ' Book design by Susan Yuran
www.anchorbooks.com Printed in the United States of America…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear
the falconer; Things Fall Apart ; the center cannot hold; Mere
anarchy is loosed upon the world.
—W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
CHAPTER ONE
Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even
beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a
young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by
throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who
for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was
called the Cat because his back would never touch the earth. It was
this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed
was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a
spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.
The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their
breath. Amalinze was a wily craftsman, but Okonkwo was as
slippery as a fish in water. Every nerve and every muscle stood out
on their arms, on their backs and their thighs, and one almost heard
them stretching to breaking point. In the end Okonkwo threw the
Cat.
That was many years ago, twenty years or more, and during this
time Okonkwo's fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan.
He was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave
him a very severe look. He breathed heavily, and it was said that,
when he slept, his wives and children in their houses could hear
him breathe. When he walked, his heels hardly touched the ground
and he seemed to walk on springs, as if he was going to pounce on
somebody. And he did pounce on people quite often. He had a
slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his
words out quickly enough, he would use his fists. He had no
patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his
father.
Unoka, for that was his father's name, had died ten years ago. In
his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of
thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it
seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called
round his neighbors and made merry. He always said that
whenever he saw a dead man's mouth he saw the folly of not eating
what one had in one's lifetime. Unoka was, of course, a debtor, and
he owed every neighbor some money, from a few cowries to quite
substantial amounts.
He was tall but very thin and had a slight stoop. He wore a haggard
and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his
flute. He was very good on his flute, and his happiest moments
were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village
musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the
fireplace. Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with
blessedness and peace. Sometimes another village would ask
Unoka's band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay with
them and teach them their tunes. They would go to such hosts for
as long as three or four markets, making music and feasting.
Unoka loved the good hire and the good fellowship, and he loved
this season of the year, when the rains had stopped and the sun rose
every morning with dazzling beauty. And it was not too hot either,
because the cold and dry harmattan wind was blowing down Irom
the north. Some years the harmattan was very severe and a dense
haze hung on the atmosphere. Old men and children would then sit
round log fires, warming their bodies. Unoka loved it all, and he
loved the first kites that returned with the dry season, and the
children who sang songs of welcome to them. He would remember
his own childhood, how he had often wandered around looking for
a kite sailing leisurely against the blue sky. As soon as he found
one he would sing with his whole being, welcoming it back from
its long, long journey, and asking it if it had brought home any
lengths of cloth.
That was years ago, when he was young. Unoka, the grown-up,
was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely
enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and
they swore never to lend him any more money because he never
paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in
borrowing more, and piling up his debts.
One day a neighbor called Okoye came in to see him. He was
reclining on a mud bed in his hut playing on the flute. He
immediately rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled
the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down. Unoka
went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden
disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of
white chalk.
"I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc
over to his guest.
"Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought
to break it," replied Okoye, passing back the disc.
"No, it is for you, I think," and they argued like this for a few
moments before Unoka accepted the honor of breaking the kola.
Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the
floor, and then painted his big toe.
As he broke the kola, Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and
health, and for protection against their enemies. When they had
eaten they talked about many things: about the heavy rains which
were drowning the yams, about the next ancestral feast and about
the impending war with the village of Mbaino. Unoka was never
happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and c