Chinua Achebe
(1930– )
Chinua Achebe was born and raised in the traditional Igbo (or Ibo) village of Ogidi when Nigeria was still a British colony. Much of Achebe's work draws on his childhood experiences in this village, the ancestral home of his father.
During his five years at the University of Ibaden, Achebe began to question the colonial-era notion that African culture was inferior to European culture. He knew that Africans had their own stories to tell and for that reason began writing short stories with an African focus. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), won international acclaim, opening many Westerners' eyes to the cultural heritage of Africa and to the destructive effects of colonial rule on individual Africans. His novels focus on life in Nigeria—sometimes presented as a fictionalized nation—from the arrival of early English missionaries, through years of colonial rule, to a post-independence era rife with corruption and political turmoil.
In 1967, civil war erupted in Nigeria when the Igbo attempted to secede and form a new republic called Biafra. The Biafran cause ultimately failed, and by the time the war ended in 1970, several million people had died, many of them starving in refugee camps. Several of the stories in Achebe's collection Girls at War (1972) reflect events of the war years and their aftermath.
