Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) is known the worldwide as making the most serious contribution to African literature through his modern novel, Things Fall Apart. This essay, in MLA format, covers the cross-cultural encounters by the colonizing British and the Africans. Achebe cleverly reclaims his heritage by writing a modern novel, which returns the dignity so deserved to his African ancestor. This is a serious must-read for anyone who is interested in searching for truths that can only be found in great literature. In the first 40 years of the 20th century, the American novel attained a maturity and force recognized by the world, symbolized by four Nobel prize-winners: Lewis, Buck, Hemingway, and Faulkner. It began with Dreiser's Sister Carrie, in 1900. Modern literature reflects America's growth in the number of cities as well as the progressive alienation from society, effects of war, growth of materialism, isolation of small towns, and the booms and depressions of the United States.
