The novelist Chinua Achebe, a fine stylish and an astute social critic, is one of the best-known African writers in the West and his novels are often assigned in university courses.

Nigerian novelist and poet, whose works explore the impact of European culture on African society.

Achebe was born in 1930, in Ogidi, eastern Nigeria. His family was Ibo and Christian. He started his education at a church missionary society school. But as a young boy, he had ample opportunity to observe a traditional village life that "hadn't been completely disorganized" by British rule. His 'secondary' and university educations were in Nigeria, as well.

He graduated from University College, Ibadan,(now the University of Ibadan) in 1953. Then, he worked for over ten years for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company. He left it in 1966 partly as a result of the political conflicts which would lead to civil war in 1967 and eventually for a career in writing and teaching . Achebe's unsentimental, often ironic books vividly convey the traditions and speech of the Ibo people.

By 1967, he had published three novels: his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), partly in response to what he saw as inaccurate characterizations of Africa and Africans by British authors. It describes the effects on Ibo society of the arrival of European colonizers and missionaries in the late 1800s; No Longer at Ease (1960) -- a narrative about the grandson, a modern Nigerian, of the main character in Things; and Arrow of God (1964--rev. 1974).

Achebe's latest novel, Anthills of the Savannah, was published in 1987, more than twenty years after A Man of the People (1966). Altogether, Achebe has written five novels. An accomplished poet, Achebe has also written essays and children's stories.

In 1990, he was severely injured in an auto accident which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He subsequently taught at various universities in Nigeria and the United States.

Achebe played a significant role in the development of the Heinemann African Writers Series, a series which has given many Africans a voice in the western world and which, outside of Africa, publishes more African (and Caribbean) writers than any other publishing house.

Most of Achebe's works are set in Africa and describe the struggles of the African people to free themselves from European political influences. During the Biafran war--the civil war in Nigeria from 1967-1970, Achebe sided with the east (the predominantly Ibo, Biafra--the losing side) joining the Biafran Ministry of Information and representing Biafra as a diplomat.

Most of his literary works of this time address Nigeria's internal conflict (see Nigeria, Federal Republic of: Civil War). These books include the volumes of poetry Beware, Soul Brother (1971) and Christmas in Biafra (1973), the short-story collection Girls at War (1972), and the children's book How the Leopard Got His Claws (1972).

In 1971 Achebe helped to found the influential literary magazine Okike. His other writings include the essay collections Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975), which he later expanded under the title Hopes and Impediments (1988); and The Trouble with Nigeria (1983).

"Chinua Achebe.". All rights reserved. 2004