Nigerian Writer Chinua Achebe Dead At 82

I realize that the death of a major author isn’t as newsworthy to most Americans as the fact of Harvard winning a March Madness game, but I couldn’t do today’s LW without nothing this news: Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian author of “Things Fall Apart,” has died. Born in 1930, he was a prominent writer and academic, and also a vocal critic of corruption in Nigerian politics. His final book, “There Was A Country,” was published last year and detailed his participation in the failed state of Biafra, which ended in 1970. “Things Fall Apart” was published in 1958, was set in an Igbo village in Nigeria, and highlighted the clashes between colonialism and traditional culture. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies around the world, and was translated into 50 languages.

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