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As with so many things, the success of Nigerian author Chinua Achebe  is best understood in reverse. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century began his career at 28 with a novel that was anything but an instant classic Chinua Achebe (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) Achebe, who died recently at 82, is best known for the impact he made on the world’s understanding of Africa with his first book, “Things Fall Apart.” In its obituary of Achebe, the Associated Press notes that the novel was rejected multiple times , and that only 2,000 copies of the first edition were printed. Its initial review in The New York Times ran less than 500 words, but the novel soon became among the most important books of the 20th century, a universally acknowledged starting point for postcolonial, indigenous African fiction , the prophetic union of British letters and African oral culture . …“Things Fall Apart” has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 l...

Ferdinando Scianna/Magnum Photos Côte d’Ivoire, 1972 Whenever African writers are on a panel together, we are asked about the continent as a whole—its literature, its future, its political woes and economic potential. Whenever African writers get together on our own, we talk about glossaries. These additions to the main text, often vetted, if not entirely decided, by publishers, are crucial to how it will be received by readers. But when African writers talk about glossaries, we don’t just exchange tips. (How long? How comprehensive? By whom?) We talk about whether to include one at all, whether to offer glosses within the text or omit all glossing entirely. To gloss, or not to gloss? That is the question. Most of us reading in the postcolonies never received glosses for the strange foods and weather of Europe. We had to figure out what snow and crumpets were on our own. When Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was published in 1958, his British publisher Heinnemann included a bilin...