List $19.99

Written by Chinua Achebe - Audio book performed by Peter Francis James - Unabridged Fiction - 6 COMPACT DISCS - 6.5 hours

Publisher, Recorded Books (December 2003)

Received the coveted 'AudioFile Earphones Award' for exceptional narrative voice and style, vocal characterization, appropriateness for audio format and enhancement of the text!

“Chinua Achebe is one of the great intellectual and ethical figures of our time.” --Leon Botstein, President, Bard College

With over eight million copies in print world wide, Achebe’s work is a definitive novel in African literature. Filled with powerful language and finely drawn characters, Things Fall Apart also shimmers with the sounds and sights of village life. Okonkwo is born into poverty, with a wastrel for a father. Driven by ambition, he works tirelessly to gain the prosperity of many fields and wives and prestige in his village. But he is harsh as well as diligent. As he sees the traditions of his people eroded by white missionaries and government officials, he lashes out in anger. Things Fall Apart traces the growing friction between village leaders and Europeans determined to save the heathen souls of Africa. But its hero, a noble man who is driven by destructive forces, speaks a universal tongue.

About the Performer: Whether you’re listening to rollicking children’s books like Darnell Rock Reporting, or Larry Brown’s gripping Vietnam saga Dirty Work, the melodic, reassuring voice of Peter Francis James turns these works into marvels of language and images.

Library Journal praises his ability to make the printed page sing in its review of Ernest J. Gaines’ In My Father’s House: “James creates a piece of chamber music out of the subtly varying cadences of Southern black speech.”

He not only reads the words aloud, he makes them resonate. James comments that the narrator must provide the voice of the story for the listener: “There has got to be that feeling that this is where it [the story] is emanating from.”

Peter Francis James began his narrating career by working on Jacques Cousteau films. He has done the voice-overs and narration on all Cousteau projects distributed in the English-speaking world, including the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and South Africa. Despite James success with the Cousteau films, he was reluctant, at first, to take the narrator’s seat at Recorded Books.

He wasn’t sure he would like being isolated in a booth for several hours, reading into a microphone. But once he gave spoken-word audio a try, he was pleasantly surprised. “Narrating books is astonishingly fun … What I like about it is you’re one-on-one. It’s as if you’re reading to one person. It’s the most intimate form of performance aside from reading bedtime stories.”

James feels that one of the benefits of narration is that he is able to read books he otherwise wouldn’t have the time to read, an appreciation shared by many avid listeners. For example, when he recorded Primary Colors, he enjoyed the book immensely. “I’m a bit of a political junkie. I thought it was really good satire and really fun.”

Look for Peter Francis James’ performances on children’s books like Junebug, The Contender, and Satchmo’s Blues. He has also narrated romances like Heaven’s Price, nonfiction such as Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, and classics including Things Fall Apart.

Listen to Peter Francis James perform 'Our Kind of People' NOTE: You will need RealPlayer Basic to listen. It's FREE !

Listen to Peter Francis James perform 'Invisible Man' NOTE: You will need RealPlayer Basic to listen. It's FREE !