 
Achebe Wins Lit Award |
The distinguished Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe will receive the 1999 Saint Louis Literary Award from the Associates of Saint Louis University Libraries on Thursday, Oct. 28. Past winners of the award include Tennesse Williams, Edward Albee, Saul Bellow, Eudora Welty and Tom Wolfe, to name a few. Recipients are chosen based on their work over a lifetime.
Achebe was born in 1930 and was reared in Ogidi, Eastern Nigeria. He graduated from University College, Ibadan, and, after a brief career in broadcasting, he became a senior research fellow and later a professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He has been professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Connecticut. Currently, he is in residence at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Achebe has published novels, short stories, essays and poems. His 20th century classic, Things Fall Apart, has more than eight million copies in print and has been translated into 50 languages. His novel Anthills of the Savannah was a finalist for the 1987 Booker award. In Another Africa, Achebe joins with photographer Robert Lyons to look at Africa at the end of the century. Achebe has received 11 honorary doctorates from universities in England, Scotland, the United States, Canada and Nigeria. He is an honorary fellow of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and has received the Nigerian National Merit Award.
The program and award presentation will be at 5:30 p.m. in Busch Memorial Center and is free and open to the public. The Associates of Saint Louis University Libraries is a group dedicated to making the literary treasures of the University known to the community, enriching the cultural life of the area and providing financial help to the libraries.
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