Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years, he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana studies at Brown University. Chinua Achebe has written over twenty books - novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry - and has received numerous honours from around the world, including the Honourary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honourary doctorates from more than thirty colleges and universities. He is also the recipient of Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. In 2007, he won the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction.
齐诺瓦·阿切比 1930年生于尼日利亚,毕业于国立伊巴丹大学,现任美国波士顿大学和哥伦比亚大学巴德学院的语言文学教授。
他一直用英语写作,以尼日利亚,以尼日利亚博人民独立前后的生活为题材的“尼日利亚四部曲”是其代表作品,其中《崩溃》1959年发表后,立即获英国最高文学奖布克奖。其他三部分分别是1960年出版的《神箭》,1966年出版的《人民公仆》。
阿切尔是尼日利亚乃至非洲最著名的作家之一,文笔恳切深沉,反映非洲社会与殖民地政治的现实,备受国际瞩目,是后殖民文学流派的最重要的代表人物。他在世界各地获得了无数的荣誉,被英格兰、美国等国的大学授予了二十多个荣誉博士学位。