Quote by Chinua Achebe: “When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”

Hope and beauty can awaken desires that seem impossible given your circumstances. The image of a disabled person longing to walk in the moonlight captures how the world's loveliness can make even the most constrained person ache for what they cannot have. Longing is not delusion — it is human.

Achebe published Things Fall Apart in 1958, two years before Nigerian independence. The novel captured Igbo society on the cusp of its transformation under British colonial rule. It appeared in the final years of a broader African awakening, as independence movements were reshaping the political map of the continent.

Nigerian novelist and critic widely regarded as the father of modern African literature. His 1958 novel Things Fall Apart is one of the most widely read works of African fiction, translated into over fifty languages. He taught for decades at Bard College in the United States.