As the Enugu-based Ncheta Ndigbo, the Centre for Memories that prides itself as the repository of Igbo history and culture, rolls out a first-ever week-long cultural event called The Things Fall Apart Festival, a departure from its earlier one-day focus on the classic novel by Chinua Achebe, festival’s Chair and author of poetry collection, dispossessed, Mr. James Eze, in this chat with Uduma Kalu, outlines the reason and plans for the festival scheduled for 29 June – 5 July 2025
I saw your name on a Things Fall Apart Festival flyer scheduled to take place in Enugu. What is it about?
Things Fall Apart Festival is a week-long event organised by the Enugu-based Centre for Memories – Ncheta Ndigbo – to celebrate the immense richness of the Igbo culture and heritage through the timeless lens of Chinua Achebe’s classic novel, Things Fall Apart. It is a new cultural awakening that seeks to invoke the essence of Africa’s prodigious artistic heritage with an extravagant array of delicately curated literary and creative arts, visual arts, performative art, our ethos and pathos, heavily rooted in memory. In other words, Things Fall Apart Festival is a bold attempt to relive our history and our heritage through a special immersive experience in the 21st century.
What is your your role in all this?
I’m the Chair of the festival. My job is to set the agenda and distill the vision of the centre on this project in a manner that brings dramatic clarity to the place of Things Fall Apart in the matrix of the constantly evolving Igbo worldview, Igbo culture being the historical milieu that sired the book. In doing this, I’m personally inspired by the Irish poet, Oscar Wilde’s famous quote that “life imitates art far more than art imitates life”. I’m just as fascinated by the prospects of discovering how much Things Fall Apart has influenced contemporary Igbo culture and worldview, as how much of this same culture must have inspired the birth of Things Fall Apart.
The question is: are there discernible threads spawned by the book that can be seen and felt in Igboland today? I think the answer is ‘yes’. One startling example is the Ajofia Masquerade from Nnewi, which has become a cultural icon in Igboland today. The custodian of the masquerade told me that he got the idea from Things Fall Apart. In my view, that firmly establishes the continuing relevance of that book and how often the contemporary Igbo world has borrowed from it. The custodian of Ajofia also confirmed that he had duly informed Achebe that the concept of his masquerade came from the book during his several meetings with the great writer.
That said, I consider it an honour to lead a team of exceedingly creative youngsters at the centre who are bending over backwards to curate memorable globules of events that will usher in a new movement in literature, culture and the arts in South East Nigeria. And I am grateful to the centre for finding me worthy of its trust on this project.
What is Things Fall Apart Day and Things Fall Apart Festival?
17 June is annually observed as the Things Fall Apart Day by the Centre for Memories, Enugu. The novel was published on 17 June 1958. Since the past five years, the centre has marked this anniversary with a series of fascinating themes. In 2020, the centre began the commemoration with the theme: Omekannaya in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: The Story of Unoka, Okonkwo and Nwoye. In 2021, the theme changed to Igwebuike: Communalism in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. 2022 came with the theme: Tradition versus Change in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The theme for 2023 was Nkuni: Resistance in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Then in 2024, the centre marked the day with the theme: “Rethinking Unoka in Things Fall Apart: The Place of Artists in a Society that Underappreciates Art”. That is how far it had come as Things Fall Apart Day. All the events marking the commemoration usually ended in one day.
However, Things Fall Apart Festival is a week-long event with carefully curated features like a specially constructed Things Fall Apart Village that casts a nostalgic gaze at pre-colonial Igbo, art exhibitions, a reading marathon, essay competitions, musical performances, theatre performances, a special appearance by Ajofia Masquerade and, on the grand finale, a speaking event involving Chimamanda Adichie, who has been on tour with her increasingly famous book, Dream Count. There will also be a seminal dialogue session with a powerful panel discussion involving exchanges between her and the members of the panel. Things Fall Apart Festival is not your typical literary festival. It is a literary route to the renaissance of the modern Igbo society, which sadly has in recent times become quite reminiscent of the phantasmagoria in Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard. The birth of Things Fall Apart in 1958 marked the turning point in the quest for a new consciousness amongst colonized Africans. In his classic essay, The Novelist as a Teacher, Achebe outlined his mission as this… ‘Here is an adequate revolution for me to espouse — to help my society regain belief in itself and to put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement’. The question is, can Things Fall Apart Festival offer us a foot on the door to this self-reclamation? Can the festival serve as the modern version of the Umuofia village square where the clan took critical decisions on the survival of its own soul? We shall see!
What are we expecting in terms of programme, personalities, partnerships?
Well, the festival is a week-long programme with a lot of activities as I had outlined above. The iconic Adichie who has been touted as the apparent heiress to Chinua Achebe’s literary greatness is headlining the festival. Other literary scholars, poets and writers and academics in Nigeria and the Diaspora shall play different roles at the festival. We are also reaching out to the national body of ANA (Association of Nigerian Authors), cultural institutions across the South East, literary societies across Nigeria, state governments in the South East, leading traditional rulers and custodians of our culture in the South East and finally, all the English Language and Literature departments in tertiary institutions in the region. But perhaps, the most important participants are the school children. We are reaching out to schools around Enugu. We have special sessions for school children. We figure that they need the festival more than other audience segments. In terms of partnerships, we are working with the government of Enugu State, AfiaTV, Providus Bank and many other quality corporate bodies who are all determined to play a role in the effort to retrieve our society from the brink.
Is it your baby or Ncheta’s?
The centre had been hosting the Things Fall Apart Day for years. I was merely invited to assist in my own way and that is what we are witnessing with the festival.
Is the festival in partnership with the Chinua Achebe family?
We don’t have a partnership with the family yet, but we have the blessing and approval of the family for the festival.
Why did you choose Chimamanda Adichie to headline it? Is she coming?
I thought that was easy to see. She is the best among equals. Her family were the next occupant of the house when Chinua Achebe’s family moved out of it at Nsukka. And today, she is fighting the same battles Achebe fought. If you read Achebe’s famous 1975 essay at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and listen to Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story, you will see a kind of pattern that points to the same source. While the thematic anxieties may be different, both speeches are deeply rooted in humanity. How could you have someone like that and you fail to tap her for the inaugural edition of an epochal festival as Things Fall Apart Festival? Besides, in 2006, Adichie herself said of Achebe: ‘Chinua Achebe will always be important to me because his work influenced not so much of my style as my writing philosophy: reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write about the things I knew well’. Why would you ignore such a figure in any conversation around Chinua Achebe’s works?
What is she speaking on?
She is Odeluwa. She will address the smouldering issues of our time through the prism of Things Fall Apart. You can be sure that Odeluwa Abba will not disappoint.
What is the importance of Things Fall Apart in Africa’s cultural consciousness today? Is it still relevant?
Asking whether Things Fall Apart is still relevant is akin to asking whether William Shakespeare’s works are still relevant. A book that is reported to have been translated to more than 50 languages and sold over 20 million copies, a book that is considered an essential text in postcolonial studies worldwide, considered as one of the most outstanding literary works in the contemporary world and studied alongside other great texts for its masterful depiction of cultural transitions, identity, power dynamics, gender roles and the clash of cultures. There is no end to the relevance of Things Fall Apart. It is a timeless classic that continues to offer irrefutable insights into the significance of cultural identity, the horrors of colonialism, globalisation and modernity and the place of Africa in contemporary cultural discourse. It is a book that reminds us of what befell us… a book that will always be with us.
Don’t take my word for it. Dig around a little and you will see that the Encyclopedia Britannica listed it as one of the “12 Novels Considered the Greatest Book Ever Written”. The Open Education Data Base also listed it among “The 50 Most Influential Books of All Time”. Time named it among the “100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2025”. The BBC listed it at No. 5 among books that have had “the most impact on shaping ideas and changing minds through history”. In fact, it was rated ahead of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Isn’t it interesting to see that Achebe bested Conrad with his epic clap-back? Now, think about a book of this magnitude and ask me again if Things Fall Apart is still relevant!
Things Fall Apart, in spite of being a groundbreaking novel, is, to some ardent Igbo culture masters, an introduction to Igbo culture by a son of a catechist. Achebe was quite young and still learning the ways of his people when he wrote the book. How do you interrogate the novel in a 21st Century world where things have not only imploded and exploded, but a whole new culture, which is neither Western nor Eastern alone, is upon us? I mean what do you think is the importance of Things Fall Apart and its future in a global intermix?
The answer is rather obvious. So long as the world remains what it is, Things Fall Apart will continue to be relevant. It is a highly inspired work… a generational text. It is not the kind of book you would expect a 28-year-old to write. Its thematic concerns are eternal. The book’s cultural resonance across the world is indisputable. It offers a most sublime insight into the disruption and devastation of colonialism, the lasting impact of the clash of cultures, as well as the telling conflict between the personal and the communal. Okonkwo acted on behalf of Umuofia, but he also exercised agency that was entirely his choice, driven by both ambition and fear of being thought weak. The book is so nuanced that the unwary reader would not even know when they trapeze from Okonkwo’s individual ambition into the collective anxieties of the clan. At the community level, the Igbo has come to accept Things Fall Apart as their cultural Bible. It serves as a roadmap to their past and a compass to their future. It is a timeless book, and even if the world had failed to recognise the merits of Things Fall Apart, the Igbo would still have upheld it. The book cast an unflinching gaze at us and spoke for and about us without emotion or attempts at appeasement. The Igbo are a proud and blunt people. The book is a repository of the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of our collective essence. Therefore, it is immortal!
What values do you see still relevant in Things Fall Apart for our continent and people? I mean for our judiciary, leadership, accountability, marriage, gender and respect for culture etc?
Things Fall Apart will continue to be relevant to Africa and Africans as well as the world. Take judiciary and leadership, for instance, and what comes to mind is the role of the Ajofia masquerade in the book. Ajofia is both the Chief Justice of the Federation and a leader who led the other masquerades representing the clans on the mission to pull down the white-man’s church. To that extent, Ajofia is a moral force-field, an incorruptible judge and a war leader in Umuofia. On accountability, Okonkwo accounted for his sin against the clan when he committed a female ochu and had to flee to Mbanta, his mother’s people. Actions have consequences in the fictive universe of the book. One of the strengths of Things Fall Apart is its completeness. It effectively covers the essentials of pre-colonial and colonial Igbo communal life. Its portrayal of the marriage institution among the people is absolutely convincing, from the peace and order in Okonkwo’s household to the marriage ceremony of Obierika’s daughter down to the flapping around of prospective suitors seeking Ezimma’s hand in marriage in Mbanta. On gender relations and balance, Achebe satirised the Igbo society’s gong-ho masculinity with so many paradoxes. Ala, the controlling deity is a goddess not a god, the intermediary between the oracles of the hills and caves is Chielo, a woman, not a man. Okonkwo is driven by his maleness, yet it is his daughter Ezimma that takes after him, not his son Nwoye. Okonkwo loves Umuofia, his fatherland, yet it is Mbanta, his motherland that offers him succor when tragedy strikes. It is these silent ironies that make Things Fall Apart unforgettable. On the question of culture, Things Fall Apart is a convincing portrait of the grandeur of the Igbo culture. It presents a compelling account of the culture, its extravagance and its monstrosities. Achebe made no attempts to colour it; the same culture that allows the son of a pauper to rise to the position of one of the lords of the clan also reminds him that those whose palm kernels are cracked for them by some benevolent spirits should not forget to be humble. The same culture that decreed the death of Ikemefuna expresses horror that he is killed by the man he calls “father”. And the most astonishing thing is that Achebe was able to pack all these unbelievable strands into a mere 166-page book at the tender age of 28. It could have been earlier since he was 28 when the book was published. In fact, Achebe bu muo!
What is the future of the festival?
The future of the festival is absolutely bright. It has been an idea waiting to happen. The warm reception it has garnered from critical stakeholders so far signposts a dazzling future. As you can see, it is taking off from the very top. When a writer, thinker and public speaker of global standing like Adichie headlines the inaugural edition of a literary festival, there can be no better way to get started. That’s enough encouragement for sustaining the idea.
What do you think is the importance of Things Fall Apart to the growth of African and global literature?
When a book poignantly explores dominant universal themes like the clash of cultures, colonialism and identity in a sublime, unputdownable prose like Things Fall Apart, it becomes a treasured heirloom of the literary world. Things Fall Apart is a heritage of global literature. It is an important text. It will always be there on the shelf of literature’s holy grail.
