Chinua Achebe honoured with Google Doodle on posthumous birthday

Google has honoured Nigerian literary icon, Chinua Achebe, on its doodle.

Google Doodle is a special logo on Google’s homepage intended to celebrate holidays, events, achievements and people.

November 16 is Achebe’s posthumous 87th birthday. Google said Achebe had been honoured to underscore his status as a figure of 20th-century literature.

“One man took it upon himself to tell the world the story of Nigeria through the eyes of its own people,” Google said.

“Chinua Achebe was the studious son of an evangelical priest. A student of English literature, he started writing in the 1950s, choosing English as his medium but weaving the storytelling tradition of the Igbo people into his books.

“His characters were insiders, everyday people such as the village chief (in Things Fall Apart); the priest (in Arrow of God) or the school teacher (in A Man of the People).

“Through their stories, we witness a Nigeria at the crossroads of civilisation, culture and generations.”

Surrounded by iconic images of his most famous literary works, today’s Doodle celebrates Achebe’s legacy on what would have been his 87th birthday.

Achebe died in March 2013 at the age of 82. Considered to be the father of modern African literature, he was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2007.