Chinua Achebe

1930–2013

Nigerian novelist, poet and critic, born in Ogidi. He studied at what is now the University of Ibadan and worked in radio before publishing Things Fall Apart (1958), followed by No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People. His 1975 lecture on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness became a landmark of postcolonial criticism. Partially paralysed by a car crash in 1990, he later taught at Bard College and Brown University, and won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007. He died in March 2013. Anthills of the Savannah was shortlisted for the 1987 Booker Prize.

Timeline of Chinua Achebe’s life

Works

• Anthills of the Savannah (1987)

Prizes

• Anthills of the Savannah — The Booker Prize 1987: Shortlist