Achebe wins Man Booker prize
2007-06-13 09:08
London - Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, often referred to as the father of modern African writing, has been awarded the 2007 Man Booker International Prize for fiction, organisers said in London on Wednesday.
The Man Booker International Prize is worth £60 000 and is awarded once every two years to a living author for a "body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage."
Achebe, 76, is perhaps best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart, written in 1958, and Anthills of the Savannah published some 30 years later.
He was born in 1930 and educated at the Government College in Umuahia and at the University College of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos in 1954 and during 1956 studied broadcasting at the BBC in London.
A diplomat in the ill-fated Biafran government of 1967-1970, Achebe's work is primarily centred on African politics.
The depiction of Africa and Africans in the West, and the intricacies of pre-colonial African culture and civilisation, as well as the effects of colonialisation on African societies.
Father of modern African literature
He has lectured at universities worldwide and is now Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, Annandale, New York State, organisers said.
Many African writers have been inspired by Achebe's work.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the young Nigerian author who won the Orange Prize for Fiction last week for Half A Yellow Sun, said of him: "He is a remarkable man. The writer and the man. He's what I think writers should be."
Nadine Gordimer, the award-winning South African writer and member of the judging panel, said: "Chinua Achebe's early work made him the father of modern African literature as an integral part of world literature."
"He has gone on to achieve what one of his characters brilliantly defines as the writer's purpose: 'a new-found utterance' for the capture of life's complexity."
'A joy and an illumination to read'
"This fiction is an original synthesis of the psychological novel, the Joycean Stream of Consciousness, the post-modern breaking of sequence thereby out-dating any prescriptivity. A joy and an illumination to read," said Gordimer.
Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, commented: "Chinua Achebe's novels describing the effects of Western customs and values on traditional African society have made him one of the most highly esteemed African writers in English.
"We are delighted to honour him as the recipient of the second Man Booker International Prize."
Achebe will receive the prize, founded in 2005, at an award ceremony on June 28, 2007, in Oxford, Britain.
- SAPA