Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe, popularly known as Chinua Achebe, was born 16 November 1930. He is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. He is best known for his first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, which is the most widely read book in modern African literature.
Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe, popularly known as Chinua Achebe, was born 16 November 1930. He is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. He is best known for his first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, which is the most widely read book in modern African literature.
Raised by Christian parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in south-eastern Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos.
Achebe’s parents, Isaiah Okafo Achebe and Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam, were converts to the Protestant Church Mission Society (CMS) in Nigeria. The elder Achebe stopped practicing the religion of his ancestors, but he respected its traditions.
Chinua’s unabbreviated name, Chinualumogu, means "May God fight on my behalf”.
He gained worldwide attention for Things Fall Apart in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe writes his novels in English and has defended the use of English, a "language of colonisers”, in African literature.
Achebe is married to Christie Okoli and they have three children and 5 grand children. Their first child, a daughter named Chinelo, was born on 11 July 1962. They had a son, Ikechukwu, on 3 December 1964, and another boy named Chidi, on 24 May 1967.
Despite his scholarly achievements and the global importance of his work, Achebe has never received a Nobel Prize, which some observers view as unjust. When Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize in 1986, Achebe joined the rest of Nigeria in celebrating the first African ever to win the prize.
In 1988 Achebe was asked by a reporter for Quality Weekly how he felt about never winning a Nobel Prize; he replied: "My position is that the Nobel Prize is important. But it is a European prize. It’s not an African prize.”
In 2012 Achebe’s publishers, Penguin, are expected to release a major new publication from the author called ‘There was a Country: A personal history of Biafra.’
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