Here’s Why Chinua Achebe’s Face Is Gracing The Google Doodle Today

Chinua Achebe would have been 87 years old today. The legendary author died in March 2013 but his work lives on. Nigerians are not the only ones celebrating him today, Google’s doodle today celebrates the life of the Nigerian born icon.

Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe was born on 16^th November, 1930 in Ogidi, Anambra State and is best known for works such as Things Fall Apart which was published in 1958. The University of Ibadan trained African literature icon also published works such as No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987).

The story was not always rosy as in March 22, 1990, he was involved in a car accident (on his was to Lagos) which is why we mostly saw him on wheelchair till his death in 2013.

His last published work There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra was by Penguin Books. In 1999, Achebe was awarded the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library AssociatesIn the autumn of 2009 he joined the Brown University faculty as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies.

On Twitter, he has been trending since the early hours of the day in  Nigeria, African and the United States. This means that he’s been celebrated around the world while his work speaks for itself. His works have since been made into films even as he as been a strong inspiration for upcoming and already established authors like Chimamanda Adichie.

As for whether there is any official thing planned for him, we don’t know but when you go to Google.com today, you’ll see the doodle and all you have to do it click on the image which then takes you to a new page from where you can access just about any information about the icon from his birth to death.