Chinua Achebe

Biography

Chinua Achebe, born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe on 16 November 1930 in Ogidi, Colonial Nigeria, was one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century. A novelist, poet, essayist, literary critic, and university teacher, he is widely regarded as the father of modern African literature, a title he himself often rejected. He passed away on 21 March 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts, leaving behind a body of work that changed world literature and postcolonial studies.

Achebe grew up in Ogidi in the Igbo-speaking southeast of Nigeria in a household influenced by both Igbo traditional culture and colonial Christianity, as his father was a teacher for the Church Missionary Society. This mix would shape the themes of his fiction throughout his life. He attended Government College Umuahia, one of Nigeria's top secondary schools, before studying at what is now the University of Ibadan. Initially enrolled to study medicine, he switched to literature. During this time, he became aware of the negative portrayals of Africa and its people in Western texts, which influenced his literary goals.

After graduating, Achebe moved to Lagos and joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Service, eventually becoming director of external broadcasting. It was during this time that he finished his debut novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958 by Heinemann. The novel, set in the fictional Igbo village of Umuofia during British colonization, introduced the character of Okonkwo and presented African life from an African perspective, something rare in widely read fiction at that time. The book sold tens of millions of copies and has been translated into over sixty languages. Along with No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964), it makes up what is often called the African Trilogy. His later novels, A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987), focused more on political corruption and failures in post-independence African states.

Achebe's impact went beyond his own works. He co-founded the Heinemann African Writers Series, which gave many African writers like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Flora Nwapa a platform. He taught at universities in Nigeria, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and his 1975 lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness became key in postcolonial literary criticism. He married Christie Chinwe Okoli-Achebe, and they had four children. Among his many honors were the Peace Prize of the German Publishers' and Booksellers' Association in 2002, the International Booker Prize in 2007, the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award in 1979, the Lotus Prize for Literature in 1975, the International Nonino Prize in 1994, and the St. Louis Literary Award in 1999. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1983 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002, and received an honorary doctorate in 1989.