Things Fall Apart (1958) tells how Okonkwo, a great warrior of an Ibo village in Nigeria falls from grace in his tribal world.
The conflict between the individual and society is no better or more wisely illustrated. A second story depicts the proselytizing European missionaries who threaten to destroy the existing indigenous culture.
Writing from an insider vantage point allows Achebe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achebe) to describe Ibo tribal practices in such a way that condemnation is not the automatic attitude.
This leads to thinking that pluralism of the sort approved by Isaiah Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin) would be more wise and humane than the extermination of competing cultures by acts of colonial imperialism.
A widely read and discussed novel. 208 pages in the Penguin Classics paperback.
Chinua Achebe died 21 March 2013. An obituary can be read here Chinua Achebe obituary | Chinua Achebe | The Guardian
Chinua Achebe
ISBN 978-0141023380