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Later years and death (2000–2013)

In 2000 Achebe published Home and Exile, a semi-biographical collection of both his thoughts on life away from Nigeria, as well as discussion of the emerging school of Native American literature. In October 2005, the London Financial Times reported that Achebe was planning to write a novella for the Canongate Myth Series, a series of short novels in which ancient myths from myriad cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors.

Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in June 2007. The judging panel included American critic Elaine Showalter, who said he "illuminated the path for writers around the world seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies"; and South African writer Nadine Gordimer, who said Achebe's "early work made him the father of modern African literature as an integral part of world literature." The award helped correct what "many perceived as a great injustice to African literature, that the founding father of African literature had not won some of the key international prizes." For the International Festival of Igbo culture, Achebe briefly returned to Nigeria to give the Ahajioku Lecture. Later that year he published The Education of A British-Protected Child, a collection of essays. In autumn he joined the Brown University faculty as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies. In 2010, Achebe was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for $300,000, one of the richest prizes for the arts.

In 2012, Achebe published There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. The work re-opened the discussion about the Nigerian Civil War. It would be his last publication during his lifetime; Achebe died after a short illness on 21 March 2013 in Boston, United States. An unidentified source close to the family said that he was ill and was hospitalised in the city. The New York Times described him in his obituary as "one of Africa's most widely read novelists and one of the continent's towering men of letters." The BBC wrote that he was "revered throughout the world for his depiction of life in Africa". He was buried in his hometown of Ogidi.