Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was born Ogidi, Nigeria on November 16, 1930.

Achebe’s hey works include: Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, A Man of the People, Beware, Soul Brother, Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems, and Anthills of the Savanna.

A prolific chronicler of colonialism and its aftermath, Chinua Achebe has received more than 20 honorary doctorates and several international literary prizes. He is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.


Articles by Chinua Achebe

Wednesday April 3

‘That Book Wrote Me’

Chinua Achebe delivered the following speech at the close of PEN’s 2008 Tribute to Chinua Achebe. It appears in PEN America 9: Checkpoints, along with other excerpts from the event.  The other day a journalist came to interview me—one of scores of journalists I’ve been entertaining in the past couple of weeks—and he asked me

Monday January 8

The Day I Finally Met Baldwin

The 1960s opened propitiously for me, and for my country, Nigeria. In 1960 Nigeria freed itself, at last, from British colonial rule. I published my second novel, and proved to myself that the first one was not a flash in the pan. The fact that a senior executive from the Rockefeller Foundation in New York