He strives to be the opposite of his father Unoka, who was an indolent debtor unable to support his wife or children, preferring flute-playing over struggling for success.

Okonkwo's son Nwoye becomes curious about the missionaries, and after he is beaten by his father for the last time, he decides to leave his family to live independently.

In the last year of his exile, Okonkwo instructs his best friend Obierika to sell all of his yams and hire two men to build him two huts so he can have a house to go back to with his family.

After a convert commits the crime of unmasking an elder as he embodies an ancestral spirit of the clan, the village retaliates by destroying a local Christian church.

In response, the District Commissioner representing the colonial government takes Okonkwo and several other native leaders prisoner pending payment of a fine of two hundred bags of cowries.

Despite the District Commissioner's instructions to treat the leaders of Umuofia with respect, the native "court messengers" humiliate them, shaving their heads and whipping them.

[6] In Things Fall Apart, he wrote: "Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten."

Achebe, who was working in the Talks Department at the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), had time to revisit and review his manuscript.

Towards the end of the year, Angela Beattie, who was about to relinquish her post as Head of Talks at NBS, was going to London for her annual leave; Achebe asked her to check the status of his manuscript which he had sent to the typing agency there.

[8] Several publishing houses rejected the typescript, giving as the reason that fiction by African writers possessed no financial potential.

The typescript was eventually taken to the office of William Heinemann, where it was presented to James Michie and through him, came to the attention of Alan Hill, a publishing advisor.

The Times Literary Supplement said that the novel "genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from inside while patterns of feeling and attitudes of mind appear clothed in a distinctive African imagery, written neither up nor down.

"[10] Things Fall Apart depicts the cultural roots of the Igbos and refers them as a universal principle, which revives the lost dignity of the people during the Colonial Nigeria.

In Things Fall Apart, there is a contradiction between different cultural practices; for example, the Europeans allow men to fight over religion but the Igbo tradition forbids the killing of each other.

During the 60th anniversary of the novel, it was read at the South Bank Centre in London on 15 April 2018 by Femi Elufowoju Jr, Adesua Etomi, Lucian Msamati, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chibundu Onuzo, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Ben Okri, and Margaret Busby.

Novelists who published after Achebe were able to find an eloquent and effective mode for the expression of the particular social, historical, and cultural situation of modern Africa.

[4] Before Things Fall Apart was published, most of the novels about Africa had been written by European authors, portraying Africans as savages who were in need of western enlightenment.

[4] He commented: "The popularity of Things Fall Apart in my own society can be explained simply ... this was the first time we were seeing ourselves, as autonomous individuals, rather than half-people, or as Conrad would say, 'rudimentary souls'.

A whole new generation of African writers – Caine Prize winners Binyavanga Wainaina (current director of the Chinua Achebe Center at Bard College) and Helon Habila (Waiting for an Angel [2004] and Measuring Time [2007]), as well as Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation [2005]), and Professor Okey Ndibe (Arrows of Rain [2000]) count Chinua Achebe as a significant influence.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of the popular and critically acclaimed novels Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), commented in a 2006 interview: "Chinua Achebe will always be important to me because his work influenced not so much my style as my writing philosophy: reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write about the things I knew well.

[22] The 60th anniversary of the first publication of Things Fall Apart was celebrated at the South Bank Centre in London, UK, on 15 April 2018 with live readings from the book by Femi Elufowoju Jr, Adesua Etomi, Yomi Sode, Lucian Msamati, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chibundu Onuzo, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Ben Okri, and Margaret Busby.

[25] The novel was made into the 1971 film Things Fall Apart starring Princess Elizabeth of Toro, Johnny Sekka and Orlando Martins by Francis Oladele and Wolf Schmidt, executive producers Hollywood lawyer Edward Mosk and his wife Fern, who wrote the screenplay.

[28] In 1999, the American hip-hop band the Roots released their fourth studio album Things Fall Apart in reference to Achebe's novel.

[29] In September 2024, a television adaptation was announced to be in development at A24 with Idris Elba set to star as well as act as executive producer alongside David Oyelowo.