Acclaimed novelist: Chinua Achebe
Rashid Razaq22 March 2013
Acclaimed Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe - regarded as the father of African literature - has died at the age of 82.
The author died in hospital in Boston in the US following an illness.
Achebe is best known for his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, set in Nigeria during the colonial era, which has sold more than 10m copies around the world and has been published in 50 languages.
A novelist, essayist and poet, he won the Man Booker international prize in 2007.
Simon Winder, publishing director at Penguin, called him an “utterly remarkable man”.
“Chinua Achebe is the greatest of African writers and we are all desolate to hear of his death,” he said.
