Chinua Achebe is arguably the most discussed African writer of his generation. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), has become a classic. It has been read and discussed by readers throughout the anglophone world and has been translated into some forty languages. Sales are estimated to be in excess of three million copies. His other novels--No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987)--are equally respected. A substantial body of scholarship and criticism has grown up around each of these books.

Achebe was born on 16 November 1930 in the village of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria. His mother was Janet Iloegbunam Achebe. His father, Isaiah Okafor Achebe, was a catechist for the Church Missionary Society, and the young Achebe's primary education was in the society's school in Ogidi. He was eight when he began to learn English and fourteen when...