I'm so glad I read this particular edition (Classics in Context) because its opening material, which includes descriptions of the Igbo culture, allowed me to understand so much more of what was going on in the subsequent text. And that text is very, very interesting. It looks at how colonialism has affected the life of one man, Okonkwo, but this man is himself a tragic microcosm for the effects of colonialism on society as a whole. The book's therefore written on multiple levels, but the prose is so restrained, and so accomplished, that all the work going on under the surface is barely visible. It's just a fascinating piece of literature, one I've been meaning to read for ages, and I'm so glad I finally did. The end, in particular, is outstanding - that final paragraph is a masterpiece of closure, imbued with terrible irony. (It's funny how often outstanding paragraphs stick in your mind, and how few there really are. The final paragraph of Things Fall Apart is as excellent and affecting as the opening paragraph of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House - they are perfect distillations of theme. The two stories are nothing alike, but can their authors ever shape a sentence.)