Obituary: A Look At The Life Of Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe, the internationally celebrated Nigerian author, statesman and dissident who gave literary birth to modern Africa with "Things Fall Apart" and continued for decades to rewrite and reclaim the history of his native country, has died. He was 82. Achebe died following a brief illness, said his agent, Andrew Wylie. "He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him," Wylie said. His eminence worldwide was rivaled only by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison and a handful of others. Achebe was a moral and literary model for countless Africans and a profound influence on such American writers as Morrison, Ha Jin and Junot Diaz. As a Nigerian , Achebe lived through and helped define revolutionary change in his country, from independence to dictatorship to the disastrous war between Nigeria and the breakaway country of Biafra in the late 1960s. He knew both the prestige