Born 1930 in
Nigeria.
Author of Things Fall Apart, one of the most widely read works of modern African fiction. A groundbreaking book, it tells the story of colonization from the point of view of the colonized. In fact many of Achebe's works describe the trauma of post-colonial Nigeria as it struggles for survival as a nation . His writing style has been described as "neither romanticizing the culture of the indigenous nor apologizing for the colonial."
His own early life reflected the duality of growing up between those two vastly different worlds. Achebe grew up in rural Nigerian but moved to London in the 1950s to work for the BBC. He was inspired to write because of his frustration with racist sterotypes of Africans in the media.
He has since returned to Nigeria and continues to write novels and essays. He has also served as a professor at the University of Nigeria and founded a publishing company.