Saturday, August 14, 2010

My New Listen


Things Fall Apart

UNABRIDGED

by Chinua Achebe

Narrated by Peter Francis James

PUBLISHER: Recorded Books

LENGTH: 6 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

With over eight million copies in print world wide, Achebe's work is a definitive novel in African literature. Filled with powerful language and finely drawn characters, Things Fall Apart also shimmers with the sounds and sights of village life.

Okonkwo is born into poverty, with a wastrel for a father. Driven by ambition, he works tirelessly to gain the prosperity of many fields and wives, and prestige in his village. But he is harsh as well as diligent. As he sees the traditions of his people eroded by white missionaries and government officials, he lashes out in anger.

Things Fall Apart traces the growing friction between village leaders and Europeans determined to save the heathen souls of Africa. But its hero, a noble man who is driven by destructive forces, speaks a universal tongue.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I heard him speak a while back while at Princeton. This book is a center piece for many of our students as we get them to think critically about world and how others shape it. My European History students read Heart of Darkness each year; we always draw the conflicts between these two works and authors into the mix.