About the Author

African writer, Chinua Achebe, is currently "one of the most important living African poet and novelist." He was born and raised in the extensive village of Ogidi, in Igboland, located in Eastern Nigeria, into a Christian evangelical family. While receiving an English education fused with an Igbo education of colonial tradition, he managed to observe firsthand how the Christian education affected, both positively and negatively, the Igbo culture due to the fact that his father taught at a missionary school. Chinua studied medicine as well as literature and commenced working in a broadcasting company. At the time he was working there, he felt ashamed of the way Nigerians and Africans were being portrayed in the texts and novels British writers had composed about Achebe’s land and Africa itself; therefore, the wrote Things Fall Apart in 1958 in the midst to the Nigerian Literary Movement. The novel was an immediate favorite and Chinua soon won several prices and awards for his masterpiece. 

The successful author discarded his radio career on the verge of the Biafran War wherein he got in trouble for writing A Man of People; this novel illustrates a story of a man in the middle of the conflict between the Northern Nigerians, the Muslim Hausa, and the Igbo people. However, he managed t narrowly escape and was free to continue with his academic and professional career.  He later took upon very high class positions such as co-founding a publishing company with a fellow poet, becoming editor of a prominent Nigerian magazine as well as “founding Iwa ndi Ibo in 1984; this bilingual publication was dedicated to Igbo cultural life.” Like his father, Chinua has also become a professor teaching a University of Nigeria, University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut. He receive the Nigerian National Merit Award in 1987 and several other awards for his great works.

Chinua Achebe is happily married today and has children. He resides in the United States and is proud to teach at Bard College.

Sources

"Biography of Chinua Achebe | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays | GradeSaver." Study Guides & Essay Editing | GradeSaver. Web. 02 Sept. 2011. <http://www.gradesaver.com/author/chinua-achebe/>.

"Chinua Achebe Biography - Life, Family, Children, Parents, Story, Young, Book, Old, Information, Born, College." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Web. 02 Sept. 2011. <http://www.notablebiographies.com/A-An/Achebe-Chinua.html>.

"Things Fall Apart Background | GradeSaver." Study Guides & Essay Editing | GradeSaver. Web. 02 Sept. 2011. <http://www.gradesaver.com/things-fall-apart/study-guide/about/>.