'Things Fall Apart' Nigerian author Chinua Achebe dead at 82

• Tweet

ANAMBRA, Nigeria, March 22 (UPI) -- Chinua Achebe, Nigerian author of the classic 1958 novel "Things Fall Apart," has died at the age of 82, officials said.

A spokesman for the government of Anambra state in southeastern Nigeria confirmed Achebe had died, the BBC reported Friday.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the celebrated writer's death or his location.

South African writer and Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer has described Achebe as the "father of modern African literature" and he was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for his body of work in 2007, the BBC said.

The writer and academic was paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair after a 1990 car crash.