Chinua Achebe
(b. 1930)

Chinua Achebe is one of Nigeria's best-known authors. In a 1968 study of Achebe's novels, Margaret Laurence wrote, "Chinua Achebe's careful and confident craftsmanship, his firm grasp of his material and his ability to create memorable and living characters place him among the best novelists now writing in any country in the English language." Achebe's novels reveal the impact of civilization on Nigerian life.

Achebe was raised in the British colony of Nigeria, where his father was a teacher at the church missionary school. Achebe was raised as a Christian, although he was also drawn to his native Ibo culture. In 1953, Achebe earned a B.A. in literature and soon after began work as a journalist for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. While working there, he wrote his first novel Things Fall Apart (1958).

In 1960, Nigeria became an independent nation. Political groups struggled for control of the country, and in 1966 civil war broke out. During this time, Achebe published No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), and A Man of the People (1966). Then, preoccupied with the horrors of the war, Achebe found himself unable to write novels. Instead, he began producing poetry, short stories, children's fiction, essays, and articles. His poetry volume Christmas in Biafra, and Other Poems (1973) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1972.

In 1971, Achebe founded Okike: A Nigerian Journal of New Writing. In 1972, he accepted a position as an English professor at the University of Massachusetts and moved to the United States. He moved back to Nigeria in 1976 to teach at the University of Nigeria at Nsukka. In 1987, Achebe returned to the United States. He currently teaches at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. His latest book, Home and Exile (2000), consists of three essays, in which he discusses European writings about Africa.

Achebe has said of himself, "I am a political writer. My politics is concerned with universal human communication across racial and cultural boundaries as a means of fostering respect for all people. Such respect can issue only from understanding."

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