BBC World Service Online

The Strand Archive

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Music

Entertainment

Harriett Gilbert and friends present global arts, culture and entertainment.

This programme is no longer on-air, listen to our archive of available episodes online. The Strand brings you news and reviews from the best in arts, culture and entertainment.

*** This programme is no longer on-air, but please listen to our archive of available episodes online ***

The Strand is a daily 18 minute programme highlighting the best of what's going in the arts. Wide-ranging and with eclectic interests, The Strand reflects the artistic response to the BBC's news agenda. Presented by Harriett Gilbert and friends, it features discussions, reviews, big-name interviews and location reports as well as live studio performances and Hollywood, Bollywood gossip.

The Strand

The Strand Archive: A Tribute to Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe

27/03/2013

A Tribute to Chinua Achebe

BBC World Service - The Strand Archive, A Tribute to Chinua Achebe

The Strand celebrates one of the world's great writers - the late Chinua Achebe.

Today, a special programme to celebrate one of the 20th Century's most important and best-loved authors - the Nigerian Chinua Achebe - whose death at the age of 82 has saddened readers around the world. Although he apparently didn't like the phrase, Achebe was often described as "the father of modern African literature" and certainly his first novel - Things Fall Apart, published when he was still in his twenties - launched a whole new literary generation, not least because it was a story of Africa told by an African. That book confronted the psychological and cultural damage caused by colonisation. But, over the years, Achebe also addressed the corruption of post independence Nigerian politics, and the nightmare of military dictatorship. Sharing their thoughts about him  will be the South Africa's Nadine Gordimer, Kenya's Binyavanga Wainaina and two of Achebe's fellow Nigerians, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Chibundu Onuzo.

Image: Chinua Achebe. Photo credit:  AP Photo/Brown University, Mike Cohea

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Strand Archive

A Tribute to Chinua Achebe

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service