One great novelist from western Africa would have to be Chinua Achebe. Chinua is a famous novelist from Nigeria who writes literature based on Africans. Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi, Nigeria on November 16 in 1930. He was born into an Igbo family in eastern Nigeria. Chinua attended college school at the University College in Ibadan. There he studied English, history and theology. Later on he began to study broadcasting at the BBC and became the first director of External Broadcasting at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961.

Chinua Achebe has written many pieces of literature throughout his life. His most famous piece would be known as, his novel, Things Fall Apart. This novel was published in 1958 and has now sold over 10 million copies around the world and has also been translated into fifty different languages.

Chinua Achebe focuses his writings on people of Africa and their lives. In Things Fall Apart Chinua writes about the tragic fall of an African character and the Igbo culture. This should give you an idea that most of his writings are about Africans and their experiences in their lives. Chinua also writes African poetry along with entries in magazines as well. Achebe has received numerous awards for his work such as the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Nigerian National Merit Award which is Nigeria’s highest recognition of achievement, in 1979.

In 1990 Chinua was paralyzed in 1990 in a terrible car accident. Although, today he is currently Charles P. Stevenson, professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in New York. Chinua is married to professor Christie Chinwe Achebe and they have four children. Chinua is a world-wide famous author of many pieces of literature.