By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The recent announcement of the proposed adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s classic novel Things Fall Apart as a global television series with the iconic actor, Idris Elba, starring as Okonkwo has animated the cultural firmament of the world. David Oyelowo’s Studio A24 will serve as producers of the TV series in partnership with Achebe Masterworks.
The power of television is almost boundless as could be seen from the worldwide sweep of the adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots. Things Fall Apart on television will definitely attract quantum viewership across the globe as per the well over 40 million readers that had read the novel in 60 languages of the world.
A landmark event such as this global TV adaptation of Things Fall Apart definitely commands consummate critical attention, with some critics arguing in a nativist manner that a native Igbo actor ought to play the role of Okonkwo! Well, William Shakespeare’s plays are acted all over the world by actors from every part of the universe.
Things Fall Apart is Chinua Achebe’s gift to the world which must be left open to multiform interpretations from all corners. Stage directors such as Chuck Mike and the late Biyi Bandele had back in time put on stage a female lead as Okonkwo in theatre adaptations of Things Fall Apart!
It is incumbent on Studio A24 and Idris Elba and David Oyelowo to do good work of the television adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. All other matters such as accents and sundry whatnots should not detain the process for now.
The venerated wife of Chinua Achebe, Professor Christie Achebe, who serves as the Board Chairperson of Achebe Masterworks, puts forward compelling words on the project thusly: “This moment makes the message of my husband’s work more urgent than ever, especially for Millennials and Generation Z. Chinua Achebe’s stories speak to these movements from an African perspective, making them essential for the ongoing global conversation about race and identity.”
Ever since its publication in 1958, Things Fall Apart has broken records in offering a universal placing for African literature. Time Magazine ranked the novel among the “100 Greatest Novels of All Time” while Encyclopaedia Britannica listed it as one of the “12 Greatest Books Ever Written.” Open Education Database included it in the list of “50 Most Influential Books of All Time.”
As the development deal of the TV series states, “A TV series adaptation of Things Fall Apart starring Idris Elba as Okonkwo is a ground-breaking moment for African literature and global storytelling. Elba’s portrayal of the complex, tragic protagonist will bring Chinua Achebe’s iconic novel to new audiences, highlighting its timeless exploration of colonialism, identity, and cultural upheaval. As one of the most important works in world literature, Things Fall Apart remains deeply relevant, and this visual retelling will offer an unparalleled opportunity to deepen its impact, connecting the struggles of the past with contemporary conversations on race, power, and resilience. The collaboration with A24, known for its commitment to ground-breaking storytelling, and visionaries like Elba and Oyelowo will ensure that Achebe’s legacy continues to inspire and challenge viewers.”
The 200-odd page novel which has been likened to epic Greek tragedies is taught not just in literature classes but in history and anthropology departments in colleges and universities across the globe. The archetypal theme of the meeting of the white world and the black race makes Things Fall Apart an epochal event in the annals of world literature. At bottom, Things Fall Apart tells the deceptively simple story of Okonkwo, a strong man whose life is dominated by the fear of failure. As a teenager he brought honour to his village by throwing the hitherto unbeatable Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling match. His fame spread through the nine villages of Umuofia and even beyond like harmattan bushfire, but he remained troubled that his father, Unoka, was a debtor and a failure.
As if to compound matters, Okonkwo notices weakness in his own son, Nwoye, and he comes to the sad conclusion that raging fire only ends up as impotent ash. Against the warning of an elder, he kills the ill-fated child, Ikemefuna, who had been given over to the people of Umuofia as ransom, a child who called him “father”. An accidental gunshot that kills a fellow villager at a wake leads to Okonkwo being exiled from Umuofia for seven years. When he comes back from exile he discovers that the Christian missionaries have literally overrun the land and even his son Nwoye had joined them. In anger, Okonkwo cuts off the head of the white man’s messenger but the people of Umuofia would not follow him to war. He hangs himself on a tree and ends up being buried by the strangers he had spent his life fighting.
Things Fall Apart works at several levels, and can be read at any age from 10 to 100. As a child one can enjoy the incidents such as the match with Amalinze the Cat, Unoka’s dramatic dismissal of his creditor, Okonkwo’s attempted shooting of one of his wives, the visitation of the masked spirits, the traumatic killing of Ikemefuna etc. Later in life, the many ironies in the book come into play such as the joke on the District Commissioner thinking that Okonkwo’s story can only end up as a paragraph in his planned book, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, without knowing that one Chinua Achebe had taken the thunder from him by giving Okonkwo an entire book in which the story is narrated from inside!
It is not for nothing that Achebe is celebrated as the father of African literature, and the production of Things Fall Apart as a global television series with Idris Elba playing the leading role of Okonkwo will definitely light up the world. Chinua Achebe has changed the perspective of world literature from the gaudy picture of Africa as painted by Europeans such as Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary and Sir Rider Haggard to the authentic telling of the tale by the Africans. Unlike earlier African writers like Guinea’s Camara Laye, author of The African Child, who painted a romantic picture of the continent, Achebe is relentlessly objective in his narration, telling it as it is, warts and all. The production of the global television series will definitely add cubits to the cherished reach of Achebe.
It needs to be recalled that it was because of the remarkable success of Things Fall Apart that the publishers, Heinemann UK, launched the African Writers Series (AWS) in 1962 with Achebe’s first novel being the first title. Things Fall Apart reputedly accounted for 80 percent of the entire revenue of the AWS. The worldwide production of the television series will hopefully open further doors.
Nelson Mandela called Achebe “a writer in whose company the prison walls fell down” while the American Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison said: “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe. For passion, intellect and crystalline prose, he is unsurpassed.” Former American President Barack Obama has high praise for Things Fall Apart thus: “A true classic of world literature, a masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” Achebe won the Man Booker International Prize for his lifetime achievement in fiction writing, beating a formidable shortlist that included Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, Ian McEwan etc. He equally won, as the first African, the American National Arts Club Medal of Honour for Literature in November 2007.
By breaking into global television through the proposed A24 production, Things Fall Apart is conquering the audio-visual stratosphere in the manner the book earned the uncommon scribal distinction as a modern classic by being adopted in 1992 into the esteemed Everyman’s Library of world classics. The Igbo world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which Achebe limned in Things Fall Apart has become the epic picture of Africa writ large that will loom large on world television.
At the turn of the 20th century, the book was voted as Africa’s “novel of the century”. Achebe in Things Fall Apart gave the world a new English language which paradoxically portrays African life without facetiousness or affectation. He lays bare the brute masculinity of the age without bending the knee to latter-day political correctness or gender balance. The truth happens to be Achebe’s sublime weapon in telling the immortal African story. It should be such a joy seeing the vision reflected on global television.
The producing company, Studio A24, has its work cut out to recruit competent scriptwriters to truly get into the soul of Things Fall Apart as depicted, for instance, in the following passage: “That night the Mother of the Spirits walked the length and breadth of the clan, weeping for her murdered son. It was a terrible night. Not even the oldest man in Umuofia had ever heard such a strange and fearful sound, and it was never to be heard again. It sounded as if the very soul of the tribe wept for a great evil that was coming – its own death.”
Time was when Alex Haley’s Roots ruled global TV. Now is the time for Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author