Google celebrates 'Things fall apart' writer Chinua Achebe's 87th posthumous birthday

Google celebrates Achebe's 87th posthumous birthday

Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe born 16 November 1930 in Ogidi, Anambra Nigeria was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic.

His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his best, is the most widely read book in modern African literature. He won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007.

Achebe died on 21 March 2013 at the of aged 82 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and was buried in his hometown Ogidi, Anambra, Nigeria.

Young Achebe during when he wrote the novel 'Things fall apart'

Notable works
The African Trilogy:
—Things Fall Apart
—No Longer at Ease
—Arrow of God
A Man of the People
Anthills of the Savannah

Notable awards
Nigerian National Order of Merit Award 1979
St. Louis Literary Award 1999
Man Booker International Prize 2007
The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize 2010

When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and returned to the U.S. in 1990, after a car accident left him partially disabled.

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