Today in history: Famous African writer is born
Achebe wrote his first novel, Things Fall Apart in 1958, partly in response to what he saw as inaccurate characterisations of Africa and Africans by British authors.
Prominent Igbo (Ibo) writer, Chinua Achebe, was born on 16 November 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria, the son of a teacher in a missionary school.
He is famous for his novels describing the effects of Western customs and values on traditional African society.
Achebe’s knack for satire and his keen ear for spoken language have made him one of the most highly esteemed African writers in English.
His parents, though they instilled in him many of the values of their traditional Igbo culture, were devout evangelicals.
In 1944, Achebe attended Government College in Umuahia. He later attended the University College of Ibadan, where he studied English, history and theology.
In 1953, he graduated with a BA, before joining the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos, and in 1954 he travelled in Africa and America, and worked for a short time as a teacher.
Achebe’s writings from this period reflect his deep personal disappointment with what Nigeria had become since independence.
Achebe wrote his first novel, Things Fall Apart, in 1958, partly in response to what he saw as inaccurate characterisations of Africa and Africans by British authors.
The book describes the effects on Ibo society of the arrival of European colonisers and missionaries in the late 1800s.
His 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 1990, Achebe became paralysed from the waist down as the result of a serious car accident.
Despite the setback however, he remained active and has continued writing and publishing, and in 2007, he won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction.
Information sourced from: South African History Online.
