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Writer Chinua Achebe Dies At 82

Michael Juliani |
March 22, 2013 | 3:18 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

Achebe speaking. (Wikimedia Commons)
Achebe speaking. (Wikimedia Commons)

Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer of the acclaimed novel Things Fall Apart, died Thursday in Boston at the age of 82.

Achebe had been in a wheelchair since a car accident in 1990 paralyzed him from the waist down, according to The New York Times, and he died Thursday after a brief illness.

Achebe published Things Fall Apart in 1958 when he was 28, and the novel became a classic. It was inspired by Achebe's family history in Nigeria, where his people were victimized by  the British and by Nigerian dictators of different ethnic groups.

The novel became an expression of anti-colonialism and a statement against Western prejudices.

Read The New York Times' full obit here.

 

Reach Executive Producer Michael Juliani here.



 

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