Christiana Chinwe Okoli: Who Is Chinua Achebe’s Wife?

On September 10, 1961, Nigerian Novelist, Critic, and Academic Chinua Achebe Married Christie Okoli

In the same year Things Fall Apart was published, Achebe was promoted at the NBS and put in charge of the network’s eastern region coverage. He moved to Enugu and began to work on his administrative duties. There he met Christiana Chinwe Okoli.

Chinua Achebe and Christiana Chinwe Okoli grew closer in the following years, and on 10 September 1961, they were married in the Chapel of Resurrection on the campus of the University of Ibadan.

Their union produced 4 children. Their first child, a daughter named Chinelo, was born on 11 July 1962. They had a son, Ikechukwu, on 3 December 1964, and another boy named Chidi, on 24 May 1967. After the Biafra War, the Achebes had another daughter on 7 March 1970, named Nwando.

Nwando Achebe is a Nigerian-American academic, feminist scholar, and multi-award-winning historian. She is the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History at Michigan State University, and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of West African History.