English TFA Context

• Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born on November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, a large village in Nigeria.
• Achebe rejected his Christian name, Albert, for his indigenous one, Chinua.
• In 1958, he published 'Things Fall Apart' as a response to novels, such as Joseph Contrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. This is because Chinua was tired of reading white men's accounts.
• 'Things Fall Apart' is set in the 1890s and it portrays the clash between Nigeria's white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people.
• Chinua writes the novel in English to respond to earlier colonial accounts of Africa; his choice of language was thus political.
• He integrates Igbo vocabulary into the narrative.
• Nigeria gained full independence in October 1960.