Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to introduce myself.

My name's Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a Load of Sport Podcasts.

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Today's great life became Africa's best known novelist.

He died in 2013 and had spent the last 23 years in a wheelchair following a terrible car accident.

His most famous book is called Things Fall Apart and here is the opening of that novel.

O'Connor was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.

His fame rested on solid personal achievements.

As a young man of 18, he had brought honour to his village by throwing Amalinzi the cat.

Amalinzi was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten from Morphe Dombeino.

He was called the cat because his back would never touch the earth.

It was this man that O'Connor threw in a fight which the old man agreed was one of the fiercest

since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.

The drums beat and the flute sang and the spectators held their breath.

Amalinzi was a wily craftsman but O'Connor was as slippery as a fishing water.

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