Author - Chinua Achebe

To know the author’s background help readers understand the author’s works better. We have done small research about the authors in class for our previous readings, specifically Shakespeare, Homer, and Kamala Markandaya. For our latest class book, Things Fall Apart, I searched up on its author, Chinua Achebe. Achebe was born in Ogidi, Nigeria. From that piece of information alone, readers can understand how well he connects to the story (in this case, Things Fall Apart) that he wrote. A common person may be able to write a story taken in a specific place even if he or she had never been there before. However, that author would not be able to capture all the details and feelings of the characters without the experience of being in that kind of society. Achebe learned the values and traditions of his society and was able to pass it on in his books.

I searched in several websites about Chinua Achebe in order to get a better understanding of his book Things Fall Apart. Below are a few links to the websites that I looked up information from:

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/achebe.htm
http://www.thecore.nus.edu.sg/post/achebe/achebebio.html
http://www.english.vt.edu/~carlisle/Postcolonial/Chinua_Achebe/ChinuaAchebe.html