An Image of Africa

About Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria and graduated from University College Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966 when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria Nsukka and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana studies at Brown University. Chinua Achebe wrote over twenty books - novels short stories essays and collections of poetry - and received numerous honours from around the world including the Honourary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as honourary doctorates from more than thirty colleges and universities. He was also the recipient of Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement the Nigerian National Merit Award. In 2007 he won the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction. He died in 2013.