Chinua Achebe is renowned as Africa's most famous novelist and author. He not only contested European narratives about Africa but also challenged traditional assumptions about the form and function of the novel. His literary life spanned over 50 years, from the publication of Things Fall Apart (1958) to There Was A Country (2012), his memoir of the Nigerian Biafran war in the 1960s. This important volume traces the formative years of Modern African writing in English and Achebe's role in helping to shape and nurture the next generation of African writers.