Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist and poet born in 1930 in Ogida. He was educated at the Government College in Umuahia and the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, and graduated in London. He began his literary career in 1950 and was one of the first representatives of the new literary wave that relied on the oral tradition of tribes and natives. He wrote more than twenty books - novels, short stories, essays and collections of poems. He is best known for his debut novel Everything is Falling Apart , which is considered the most widely read book in modern African literature. He was followed by the novels No longer at Ease and Arrow of God , which, linked by themes and characters, form the "African Trilogy". He has won numerous literary awards, including the prestigious Man Booker International Prize in 2007.