Acclaimed writer Achebe no more

New York (AP): Chinua Achebe, the internationally celebrated Nigerian author, statesman and dissident who gave literary birth to modern Africa with Things Fall Apart and continued for decades to rewrite and reclaim the history of his native country, has died. He was 82. Achebe died following a brief illness, said his agent, Andrew Wylie. "He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him," Wylie said. As a Nigerian, Achebe lived through and helped define revolutionary change in his country, from independence to dictatorship to the disastrous war between Nigeria and the breakaway country of Biafra in the late 1960s. He knew both the prestige of serving on government commissions and the fear of being declared an enemy of the state. He spent much of his adult life in the United States, but never stopped calling for democracy in Nigeria or resisting literary honors from a government he refused to accept. Turned down by several publishers, Things Fall Apart was finally accepted by Heinemann and released in 1958 with a first printing of 2,000. Its initial review in The New York Timesran less than 500 words, but the novel soon became among the most important books of the 20th century, a universally acknowledged starting point for postcolonial, indigenous African fiction, the prophetic union of British letters and African oral culture. "It would be impossible to say how Things Fall Apart influenced African writing," the African scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah once observed. "It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or Pushkin influenced Russians. Achebe didn't only play the game, he invented it." Things Fall Apart has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe also was a forceful critic of Western literature about Africa, especially Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, standard reading for millions.