Achebe, Chinua (1930–)

One of the foremost African writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Achebe gives voice to African perspectives on precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial social and cultural developments.

Chinua Achebe was born on November 15, 1930, in Ogidi, Nigeria. His parents named him Albert Chinualumogo Achebe after Great Britain's Prince Albert, husband to Queen Victoria. As a university student, Achebe began writing and publishing short stories, he changed his name to Chinua Achebe, discarding the colonial legacy, and soon earned an international reputation as a writer. His writings eloquently demonstrate African agency, articulating European and African encounters, and scrutinizing the consequences for Africans linguistically, religiously, politically, and economically.

Achebe was 28 years old in 1958 when his first novel, Things Fall Apart, was published; he was working for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation at that time. After Nigeria's second coup d'état and shortly after publication of Man of the People in 1966, Achebe went to work for the Biafran Ministry of Information. He supported the Biafran secessionist movement. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The university was destroyed during Nigeria's civil war, as government forces attempted cultural genocide to quell alternative ways of thinking.

Known as a modest man, Achebe has long been an activist and an advocate for social justice. He helped to rebuild the University of Nsukka, with few resources, after the war. He worked with the National Guidance Committee to produce the Ahiara Declaration, a document championing the sanctity and dignity of human life, peaceful coexistence, egalitarianism, social justice, and government service as public good rather than a platform for selfaggrandizement. His personal philosophy is to create communal endeavors rather than to promote individuals or commercial ventures; he has worked tirelessly to establish literary journals and other opportunities that have introduced numerous African writers to a wide audience. He convinced a major publishing house to highlight African authors and became the founding editor of the Heinemann African Writer's Series in 1962. He cofounded a publishing company with Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo in 1966. He founded the journal Okike—An African Journal of New Writing in 1971, became the founding editor of the Association of Nigerian Authors in 1981, and founded Iwa ndi Ibo in 1984; this bilingual publication was dedicated to Igbo cultural life. He has mentored numerous students and young artists; authors such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Flora Nwapa both developed under his tutelage.

He does not shy away from political issues in his novels or in his daily life. In 2004, Achebe criticized the Nigerian government for its failure to utilize national oil resources to support its people. In refusing to accept Nigeria's second highest honor, “Commander of the Federal Republic,” Achebe supported labor strikes and called for social and political change in Nigeria. He is the recipient of several international literary awards, has received more than 30 honorary doctorates from universities around the world, and is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He holds Nigeria's highest honor for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. Achebe eventually left Nigeria to lecture and teach in the United States. While he remains Professor Emeritus of English at University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he is currently the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

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