> What value does knowing what year an obscure book was published provide for his life in general? Agreed in general. In this specific case I should point out,

> What value does knowing what year an obscure book was published provide for his life in general? Agreed in general. In this specific case I should point out, however, that Things Fall Apart (1958) may be the most widely read piece of African literature. It's regularly assigned in college literature courses and is selling better on Amazon than either War and Peace or Neal Stephenson's Seveneves (to pick two that people here may have heard of.)