records his personal experiences in the Nigeria-Biafra war, and according to Niven "is written in a compelling narrative form as though it were a novel". On 13 May 1989 a symposium was held at the University of Port Harcourt to celebrate Amadi's 55th birthday. In May 2004, a conference was organized by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State Branch, to mark Elechi Amadi's 70th birthday. For his last book, When God Came, Elechi turned for the first time to the genre of science fiction. Reviewing it, Lindsay Barrett wrote: "When an author has attained the status of an icon in his profession, based on the publication of works that have been declared iconic masterpieces from the earliest period of his career, it is unusual to find him engaging in experimentation in the latter stages of that career. This is the surprising trajectory that this short but profoundly memorable booklet by the late Elechi Amadi represents. Although the two narrative treatises contained in this work were described by the author as an excursion into the medium of science fiction it would really be more accurate to define them as philosophical allegories. Their contents contemplate the human condition and the limits of the potential for human achievement based on the concept of the supernatural rather than simply being exercises in the conceptualisation of events of an otherworldly nature, which popular science fiction often is. ... In the final analysis these works read like fables from the future that the author must have had immense enjoyment creating. Amadi’s love for literature and his prolific output in his early years overshadowed his scientific background especially after the Civil War when he settled down to work as an educationist and public administrator in Rivers State. It was in this period that he embarked on the experiments in new forms of writing of which this work is a slight but unforgettable example." Later years 2009 kidnapping On 5 January 2009 Amadi was kidnapped at his home in Aluu town, Ikwerre, by unknown gunmen. He was released on the evening of 6 January, 23 hours later. Africa39 In 2014 he was a judge of Africa39, together with Tess Onwueme and Margaret Busby. Death On 29 June 2016, Amadi died at the Good Heart Hospital in Port Harcourt at the age of 82. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka paid tribute to Amadi as "a soldier and poet, captive