Chinua Achebe was born on 16 November 1930, in Ogidi, Eastern Nigeria. His great uncle, who brought up Achebe’s father, had taken the ‘highest-but-one title’ in the clan, and was considered to be of such importance that when in the late nineteenth century Anglican missionaries came to Ogidi, and sought support for their work, they were shown to his compound. ‘For a short while he allowed them to operate from his compound,’ Achebe says in an essay written nearly a century later, ‘but after a few days he sent them packing again.’ Not because he found their theology offensive, but because he found their music alarming. ‘Your music is too sad to come from a man’s house,’ Achebe’s great uncle told the missionaries, ‘my neighbors might think it was my funeral dirge.’

(Biyi Bandele, Introduction to "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe)