Achebe Wins Booker Prize

Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, won the Booker International prize, an award given out every two years to recognize a living writer's body of work. The 76-year-old Nigerian is credited with the creation of the modern African novel and is the most translated African author.

"He's what I think writers should be," one judge averred. He's also a literary critic and a professor at Bard College. The prize, first awarded in 2005 to  Albanian Ismail Kadare, brings its recipient  $120,000. Achebe has  been paralyzed from the waist down since a 1990 car accident. (More fiction stories.)