Add to researchChinua Achebe

Don Hamerman

Born

Nigeria

Genre

Poetry, Non-Fiction, Fiction, Children

 

 

Biography

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930.

He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centres of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan.

His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over 15 years he was the Carles P. Stevenson Jr Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.

Chinua Achebe has written over 20 books - novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry - including Things Fall Apart (1958), which has now sold over 10 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 50 languages; Arrow of God (1964); Beware, Soul Brother and Other Poems (1971), winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; Anthills of the Savannah (1987), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction; Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (1988); and Home and Exile (2000).

Chinua Achebe has received numerous honours from around the world, including the Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honorary doctorates from more than 30 colleges and universities. He is also the recipeint of Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. In 2007, he won the Man Booker International Prize. He died on 22nd March 2013.