Question: People of the City is a novel by Cyprian Ekwensi that preempted the importance of a novel first published in what year?
Context: Qurratulain Hyder (20 January 1927 – 21 August 2007) was an influential Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist.  One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, "Aag Ka Darya" (River of Fire), a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post partition of India.  Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer and pioneers of Urdu short story writing Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880–1943).  Her mother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder (1894–1967), was also a novelist and protegee of Muhammadi Begam and her husband Syed Mumtaz Ali, who published her first novel. Three Comrades (German: "Drei Kameraden" ) is a novel first published in 1936 by the German author Erich Maria Remarque.  It is written in first person by the main character Robert Lohkamp, whose somewhat disillusioned outlook on life is due to his horrifying experiences in the trenches of the First World War's French-German front.  He shares these experiences with Otto Köster and Gottfried Lenz, his two comrades with whom he runs an auto-repair shop in late 1920s Berlin (probably).  Remarque wrote the novel in exile and it was first published in Dutch translation as "Drie kameraden", with English translation following soon in "Good Housekeeping" from January to March 1937 and in the book form in the same year.  First German language edition was published in 1938 by exile publisher "Querido" in Amsterdam, but the novel was published in Germany only in 1951. The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend is a fantasy novel first published in 1993 and was written by British author David Gemmell.  The novel is a prequel to the popular title Legend.  The novel details the early life and events of the character Druss, it is followed by The Legend of Deathwalker which deals with later events in his life between this book and the events in "Legend". Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in 1958.  The story's main theme concerns pre- and post-colonial life in late nineteenth century Nigeria.  It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, one of the first to receive global critical acclaim.  It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world.  It was first published in 1958 by William Heinemann Ltd in the UK; in 1962, it was also the first work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series.  The title of the novel comes from a line in W. B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming". The Swords of Lankhmar is a fantasy novel, first published 1968, by Fritz Leiber, featuring his sword and sorcery heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.  It is chronologically the fifth volume of the complete seven volume edition of the collected stories devoted to the characters.  The book is an expansion of Leiber's earlier novella "Scylla's Daughter", which was published originally in the magazine "Fantastic Stories of Imagination" for May 1961.  The full novel first published in paperback format during 1968 by Ace Books company, which reprinted the title numerous times through 1986; a later paperback edition was issued by Dark Horse (2008).  It has been published in the United Kingdom by Mayflower Books (1970) and Grafton (1986, 1987).  The first hardcover edition was issued by Rupert Hart-Davis during June 1969; a later hardcover edition was issued by Gregg Press during December 1977.  The book has also been gathered together with others in the series into various omnibus editions; "Swords' Masters" (1990), "Return to Lankhmar" (1997), and "The Second Book of Lankhmar" (2001). Loser is a coming of age young adult novel first published in 2002 by American author Jerry Spinelli.  It details the growth of Donald Zinkoff, who is branded a "loser" by his classmates due to his clumsiness, poor performance in school and athletics, and sometimes clueless enthusiasm.  The book is unique among Spinelli's work in that is entirely written in the present tense.  The life lesson of "Loser" is about the human rudeness, the importance of failure, and how any name can be replaced with hero.  It was nominated for the 2004-05 Mark Twain Award. Burning Grass is a novel by Nigerian author Cyprian Ekwensi, first published in 1962 as part of the Heinemann African Writers Series. The Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year.  It is named after British author Arthur C. Clarke, who gave a grant to establish the award in 1987.  The book is chosen by a panel of judges from the British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation, and a third organisation, which as of 2012 is the Sci-Fi-London film festival.  The award has been described as "the UK's most prestigious science fiction prize". People of the City is the debut novel of Cyprian Ekwensi first published in 1954 as part of the influential African Writers Series.  In Ekwensi's obituary in "The Guardian", Shola Adenekan called the novel "the first Nigerian work to gain international acclaim and the first Nigerian novel to be published in Britain", preempting the importance of Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart."  The novel was a predecessor to a number of other city novels in the Nigerian tradition. Lokotown and Other Stories is a collection of nine short stories by Nigerian author Cyprian Ekwensi, published in 1966 as the 19th volume in the African Writers Series.  Looking at Nigerian city life, his stories show excitement and dissolution.
Answer: 1958