Design that Matters Field Journal

Things Fall Apart

For those interested in learning more about the culture behind all the pictures we've been posting, we plan to put up a series of recommendations for books that we feel capture the African experience.

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, set in an Ibo village at the turn of the century in what is now Nigeria, describes the customs and daily life of the community and one man in particular, and the disastrous effects of their first encounter with colonialism in the form of British Christian missionaries.

"We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true."

"There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?" [Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 130]

If we have time, we'll also recommend some books that illustrate conditions in developing countries more generally, and whatever else we think expresses some element of our experience here.