Banned Books by DK

Author:DK
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780241596623
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd

Brendan Behan, c. 1955

g THE POSTWAR YEARS g CONTENTS

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

1958

First published in 1958, in the final years of British rule in Nigeria, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart details the detrimental effects of colonialism on Okonkwo, the Igbo leader of a fictional Nigerian village. Over the course of the novel, the structure of Igbo society disintegrates as Christianity replaces traditional culture.

Achebe said he was reclaiming his Igbo identity in the novel, but many Nigerians interpreted the novel’s conclusion – Okonkwo dies by suicide to avoid punishment from the colonizers – as Achebe’s belief in the collapse of Igbo culture. At the same time, the novel’s criticism of colonialism caused a stir in some former colonies. Malaysia – a British colony until 1957 – reportedly imposed an outright ban on the novel.

Things Fall Apart appears on high school and university reading lists across the world, for both its literary and political importance, but it remains controversial. In 2012, Nigerian actor Femi Robinson called (unsuccessfully) for the Nigerian government to ban it from schools, claiming that Achebe had been “selling hate and disunity”. In 2012, complaints that his work could be “politically, racially, or socially offensive” were filed at Centennial High School in Burleson, Texas, in an unsuccessful attempt to ban the novel. Others have argued that its themes need careful handling. In 2014, Oberlin College in Ohio listed the novel as one that should come with a content warning, as it could traumatize students who had experienced its themes first-hand. While some academics view content warnings as a form of censorship, others argue that they can widen access by allowing readers to approach a text when they are mentally prepared.

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