Nigeria's Achebe lands International Booker

London, June 13: Nigeria's Chinua Achebe, hailed as the father of modern African writing, was awarded the 60,000 pound (118,400 dollars) Man Booker International Prize. His award capped a triumphant month for Nigerian authors as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie last week landed the Orange Prize, one of the literary world's top awards for women writers. The International Man Booker award is granted every two years to a living author for their achievements in fiction.

Elaine Showalter, who headed the judging panel, said the winner had ''inaugurated the modern African novel.'' Achebe, who is now 76, is best known for his 1958 debut novel ''Things Fall Apart'' which has sold 10 million copies worldwide and ''Anthills of the Savannah'' that was published 30 years later.

A diplomat in the short-lived Biafran government in the late 1960s his work is centered mainly on African politics and on how Africans are depicted in the West.

Paralyzed from the waist down in a 1990 car accident, he has lectured at universities around the world and is currently a professor at Bard College in Annandale, New York State.

He has been an inspiration to many African writers. Adichie said: ''He is a remarkable man ... He's what I think writers should be.''

Reuters>