On this day in 2013, Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic, who died on 21 March 2013 was buried at Ogidi, his home town, in Idemili North local government area .
Did you know that when the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation.
The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970's, and returned to the U.S. in 1990 after a car accident left him partially disabled.
His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) was considered his magnum opus, and is the most widely read book in modern African literature.
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