Now that we are done, do you feel that you have gotten to know the Igbo a little bit? Perhaps, you have even reflected a little on your own culture as well? And I certainly hope that you have made a storybook of which you can be proud!

Consider what you've learned as you begin reading Things Fall Apart . Chinua Achebe was writing his novel Things Fall Apart in a time period when there were few African novels. He knew that his Western readers would NOT be familiar with Igbo culture. What types of things do you think he'll do in his novel to help the readers become familiar with the culture?

As we conclude our work for today, please consider an anecdote Philip Emeagwali, an Igbo mathematician and one of founders of the Internet, shared about the power of storytelling:

When I was ten years old, living in Africa , my father posed the following question to me: "The story or the warrior, which is mightier?" "The warrior!" I replied." My father shook his head in disagreement. "The story. The story is mightier than the warrior," he said to me. "How can that be?" I asked him. "The story lives on long after the warrior has died," he explained. (taken from “ Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed”)