Friday, March 22, 2013

Chinua Achebe, Author of "Things Fall Apart", Dies at 82

I just read a New York Times article titled Chinua Achebe, African Literary Titan, Dies at 82 by Jonathan Kandell. In Chinua Achebe, African Literary Titan, Dies at 82, Mr. Kendall wrote:
Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian author and towering man of letters whose internationally acclaimed fiction sought to revive African literature and rewrite the story of the continent that had long been told by Western voices, died on Thursday in Boston. He was 82.  

His agent in London said he died after a brief illness. Mr. Achebe had been using a wheelchair since a car accident in Nigeria in 1990 left him paralyzed from the waist down. 

Mr. Achebe caught the world’s attention with his first novel, “Things Fall Apart.” Published in 1958, when he was 28, the story would become a classic of world literature and required reading in university courses, selling more than 10 million copies in 45 languages.

Mr. Kandell goes on to write about Chinua Achebe's life and literary career in more detail in his three page online article for The New York Times. 

I personally learned a wealth of new information about Chinua Achebe's life, as my knowledge was limited to the fact that he originally hailed from Nigeria and had written “Things Fall Apart".

I'm saddened to learn about the loss of such a literary giant! 

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