Chinua Achebe was born Chinualumogu Albert Achebe, in Ogidi, in present-day Anambra State, Nigeria, in 1930 and was raised by devout Christian parents. He later dropped the "tribute to Victorian England" (Hopes and Impediments, p.33), upon going away to university and shortened his first name to its present better-known form - Chinua.

Chinua Achebe schooled at Government College, Umuahia before earning an undergraduate degree from University College, Ibadan (now known as University of Ibadan). He was Director of External Broadcasting in the Nigerian government before joining the Biafran Ministry of Information following the secession of Eastern Nigeria in 1967. After the civil war, Achebe was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and began lecturing abroad. He has lectured at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Dartmouth University, and is presently Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is also Emeritus Professor of English at University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Founding Editor of the Heinemann African Writer's Series (1962). Founding Editor Okike - An African Journal of New Writing (1971), and Founding Editor of the Association of Nigerian Authors (1981).

Chinua Achebe has written twenty-one novels, short-stories and collections of poetry. His first and best-known book, Things Fall Apart was published at the tender age of 28, and has proved popular not just in Nigeria, but throughout Africa and the rest of the world. Achebe has also won acclaim for Arrow of God, which is winner of the New Statesman-Jock Campbell Award, Christmas in Biafra, joint winner of the first Commonwealth Prize, and Anthills of the Savannah, a finalist for the prestigious Booker Prize in England. (take a peek here at some famous literary awards).

Chinua Achebe has received numerous other honors from around the world and is a recipient of the highest award for intellectual achievement in his native country of Nigeria. He is married and has four children.

1. Links to Things Fall Apart

• On-line Class Discussion Among Students at University of Texas
• Review from Washington State University
• Review from Brown University
• Women's Role in Novel from Brown University
• Women's Role in Novel by Rose Mezu
• Role of Death in Novel - courtesy of Afrinet Archives

2. Achebe's Other Novels

• Review of Man of the People from Brown University
• Review of No Longer At Ease from Brown University
• Review of Arrow of God from Brown University
• A Perspective on Achebe's Works from York University

3. Miscellaneous Links to Achebe

• An Interview with Chinua Achebe
• On Achebe's Criticism of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from University of Texas
• Chinua Achebe's Pages from Brown University
• Proverbs in Chinua Achebe's Works compiled by Nwabu Nnebe

Achebe's Novels and their Religious Context: Missiological and Fictional Discourse by Norman Cary. HREF="mailto: nnnebe@hotmail.com">(nnnebe@hotmail.com