麻豆社

Today, a special programme to celebrate one of the 20th Century's most important and best-loved authors - the Nigerian Chinua Achebe - whose death at the age of 82 has saddened readers around the world. Although he apparently didn't like the phrase, Achebe was often described as "the father of modern African literature" and certainly his first novel - Things Fall Apart, published when he was still in his twenties - launched a whole new literary generation, not least because it was a story of Africa told by an African. That book confronted the psychological and cultural damage caused by colonisation. But, over the years, Achebe also addressed the corruption of post independence Nigerian politics, and the nightmare of military dictatorship. Sharing their thoughts about him will be the South Africa's Nadine Gordimer, Kenya's Binyavanga Wainaina and two of Achebe's fellow Nigerians, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Chibundu Onuzo.

Image: Chinua Achebe. Photo credit: AP Photo/Brown University, Mike Cohea