Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi, Nigeria in 1930, which was at that time a colony of the British Empire. Achebe and his family were members of the Igbo, a minority ethnic group in Nigeria who lived primarily in the southeast of the country. As a child, Achebe learned Igbo stories and read European literature. While studying at University College in Ibadan, Nigeria, Achebe became disillusioned with European depictions of Africa and Africans and decided to become a writer himself. In 1958, he published his first and most well-known novel, Things Fall Apart, depicting European colonization of Nigeria from an African perspective. Things Fall Apart went on to become the most famous work of African literature in the world, renowned for its detailed and revolutionary depiction of Igbo life. After its success, Achebe worked to promote postcolonial African literature as the editor of the African Writers Series. During the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), in which the predominantly Igbo state of Biafra attempted to secede from Nigeria, Achebe supported the Biafran government and opposed the Nigerian state, which he felt was a remnant of British colonialism. He and his family suffered from the devastation of the war, and many of his friends and colleagues were harmed or killed in the violence. Throughout his life, he wrote several more novels and numerous short stories, all featuring African settings and protagonists, while dealing with uniquely African issues. In 1990, Achebe was a victim of a car crash which paralyzed him from the waist down. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He continued to live in America but remained active in Nigerian politics until his death in 2013, at the age of 82.