December 19, 2008
The author of Things Fall Apart has been called the father of a generation of writers. His enduring novel has been translated into 50 languages, has sold 10 million copies, and is required reading in countless high schools. Kurt asks Achebe to look back at what's happened in the fifty years since its publication.
In this excerpt, readers get a glimpse of Igbo life in Nigeria before the Europeans arrive to impose their strange customs. Read by WNYC's evening host Terrance McKnight.
Like Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Adichie is an award-winning Nigerian author whose writing has brought her country's history to global audiences. She tells Kurt why Achebe has played such a large role in her work. Produced by Studio 360's David Krasnow and Chloe Plaunt.
What Achebe did for literature, Fela Kuti did for music. The Nigerian composer and father of Afrobeat inspired a generation of artists--one of whom is choreographer Bill T. Jones. Kurt talks with Jones about his musical "Fela!" which celebrates the art and life of a musical legend.
Extra Golden is an unusual collaboration of musicians from Western Kenya and the Eastern USA. They recorded their first CD in Kenya, on a laptop, in a bar. Studio 360's Rob Weisberg asks the motley crew about how they manage to mix different styles.
It's become a holiday tradition: every year, hundreds of people gather with boomboxes to perform Phil Kline's ambient, techno Christmas carol called "Unsilent Night." Jonathan Mitchell went along for the ride.
(Originally aired: December 22, 2005)
Design guru Steven Heller explains how Father Christmas became branded as a jolly bearded old man in a red suit.
(Originally aired: December 21, 2002)
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
