Biographie de Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe, born in 1930, was brought up in a Christian evangelical family in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centres of Anglican missionary work in Igboland, Eastern Nigeria. After studying medicine and literature at the University of Ibadan, he went to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos. His career in radio ended abruptly in 1966 when he left his position as Director of External Broadcasting, Lagos, during the national upheaval and massacres that led to the Biafran War.
He had narrowly escaped confrontation with armed soldiers who apparently believed that his novel, A Man of the People, implicated him in Nigerians first military coup. Achebe's career as a university academic began in 1967 with his appointment as Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria. He was made Emeritus Professor in 1985. Other universities he taught at include the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut.
Achebe has received numerous honours from different parts of the world, including over twenty honorary doctorates from universities in Britain, the USA, Canada and Nigeria. In 1987 he received Nigerians highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. Achebe is the author of many novels, short stories, essays and children's books. Things Fall Apart, his first novel, was published in 1958.
It has sold over eight million copies, and has been translated into at least 45 1anguages. It was followed by No Longer At Ease (1960), then Arrow o f God (1964), which won the first New Statesman Jock Campbell Prize, and A Man of the People (1966). Anthills o f the Savannah was shortlisted for the Booker McConnell Prize in 1987. Beware Soul Brother, a book of poetry, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1972.
Chinua Achebe lives in the USA, teaching at Bard College. He is married and has four children.
