Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a prominent Nigerian author born in 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria. Raised in an academic environment with university-educated parents, she initially pursued a degree in medicine before shifting her focus to literature. Adichie's writing career took off with her first novel, *Purple Hibiscus*, published in 2003, which explores themes of family and repression against the backdrop of Nigerian society. This debut garnered critical acclaim, earning her several literary awards, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.
Her second novel, *Half a Yellow Sun*, published in 2006, is based on her short story of the same name and has also received significant recognition, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Adichie is not only a novelist but also a celebrated essayist, with works such as *We Should All Be Feminists* and *Notes on Grief* contributing to discussions on feminism and personal loss. In addition to her literary achievements, she has conducted writing workshops and has been involved with various educational institutions. Adichie's body of work has established her as a key voice in contemporary literature, reflecting her experiences in Nigeria and the diasporic narrative.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Writer
- Born: September 15, 1977
- Place of Birth: Enugu, Nigeria
Biography
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria, the daughter of university teachers. She medicine for two years at the University of Nigeria after she completed her secondary education. Throughout her academic life in Nigeria, she has won numerous awards and she edited the university’s magazine. With a scholarship to Philadelphia’s Drexel University, she moved to the United States to pursue degrees in communications and political science. She later attended Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic in order to be close to a sister, who had a medical practice there. Graduating summa cum laude in 2001, Adichie then completed a master’s degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Adichie was interested in literature since she was a child growing up in Nigeria, when she wrote many stories, largely fantasies about things not in her homeland. She was profoundly influenced by the great Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, whose novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), inspired Adichie to take her writing more seriously; an homage to Achebe appears in the opening, paraphrased lines in Adichie’s first novel, which echo Achebe’s. Literature, however, was a pastime pleasure for Adichie, given that medicine represented a more serious pursuit and offered the possibility of steady employment. At Eastern Connecticut State University, however, she began her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, which was published in 2003.
Purple Hibiscus is a coming-of-age story set in her native Nigeria; it tells of Kambili, a fifteen-year-old girl who lives in confinement, both by the high walls surrounding her house and her father’s strict, repressive, and often violent authority. When a military coup threatens the family, the father sends the girl and her brother away to another, happier family overseen by their aunts. During the course of the novel, the mysteries of her father and his secret life reveal themselves.
Purple Hibiscus was critically well received. Adichie was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize for the novel, and she won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. In 2006, Adichie published a second novel, Half a Yellow Sun, based on her short story of the same name. Adichie also has won awards for her short fiction from the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the British Broadcasting Corporation, and she was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002. In 2020, when the Women's Prize for Fiction was celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary by choosing twenty five Winners of Winners, Half a Yellow Sun was chosen as a recipient.
Her stories have appeared in Zoetrope All-Story, The Iowa Review, Other Voices, Calyx, Wasafiri, and Granta and have been published online. In 2006, she divided her time between Nigeria and the United States, where she was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.
Other works by Adichie include the 2009 short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck; the 2013 novel Americanah; the 2014 long-form essay We Should All Be Feminists; and Notes on Grief, a 2021 essay/personal memoir. In 2023, she published her first picture book, Mama's Sleeping Scarf.
"21st Annual Great Writers-Great Reading Series: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie." Hofstra University, 2024, news.hofstra.edu/event/21st-annual-great-writers-great-readings-series-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie/. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.
"Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Author warns about 'epidemic of self-censorship'." BBC, 29 Nov. 2022, www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63797087. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.
Flood, Alison. "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Voted Women's prize 'winner of winners'." Guardian, 11 Nov. 2020, www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/12/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-half-of-a-yellow-sun-voted-womens-prize-winner-of-winners. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.