Chinua Achebe, an Icon of African Literature passes on.

Renowned Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe,  widely looked at as the grandfather of modern African literature, has died  at the age of 82, as reported on Friday by the Penguin publisher.

Achebe made his name more than 50 years ago with his maiden novel "Things Fall Apart," which highlighted the  collision between British colonial rule and traditional Igbo culture in his native southeastern Nigeria.

Local media reported that he died in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

African Author Chinua Achebe (RIP)

A statement from the Mandela Foundation in South Africa said he died on Thursday and quoted Nelson Mandela as referring to him as a writer "in whose company the prison walls fell down." "We would like to offer our condolences to the family of Prof. Chinua Achebe, a great African writer and thinker," said Sello Hatang, Spokesperson, Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory

He also strongly backed his native Biafra in Nigeria's 1967-1970 civil war which killed around one million people -- the subject of a long-awaited memoir he published last year. In 2011, Achebe rejected a Nigerian government offer to honour him with one of the nation's highest awards.

He had lived and worked as a professor in the United States, most recently at Brown University in Rhode Island.

A car accident put him in a wheelchair in 1990, after which he wrote no books for more than 20 years. He spent most of his later years in the United States where he is reported to have succumbed to death.  

A youthful Achebe in the 1950s.