Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Template:Short description Template:Good article Template:Use Nigerian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieTemplate:Efn (born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer, who is widely recognised as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature.

Born into an Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria, Adichie was educated at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where she studied medicine for a year and half. She left Nigeria at the age of 19 to study in the United States at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and went on to study at a further three universities in the U.S.: Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University.

Many of Adichie's novels are set in Nsukka, where she grew up. She started writing during her university education. She first wrote Decisions (1997), a poetry collection, followed by a play, For Love of Biafra (1998). She achieved early success with her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus. Adichie has written many works and has cited Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta as inspirations, and Adichie's writing style juxtaposes Western and African influences, with particular influence from Igbo culture. Most of her works explore the themes of religion, immigration, gender and culture.

Adichie uses fashion as a medium to break down stereotypes, and in 2018 was recognised with a Shorty Award for her "Wear Nigerian Campaign". She has a successful speaking career: her 2009 TED Talk "The Danger of a Single Story" is one of the most viewed TED Talks; her 2012 talk, "We Should All Be Feminists", was sampled by American singer Beyoncé, as well as being featured on a T-shirt by Dior in 2016. Adichie's awards and honours include academic and literary prizes, fellowships, grants, honorary degrees, and other high recognition, such as a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

Biography

Birth and family

Adichie was born with the English name Grace<ref name="punchng">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> on 15 September 1977 as the fifth out of six children. She was raised in Enugu, Nigeria by parents of Igbo origin.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Her father James Nwoye Adichie was from Abba in Anambra State while her mother and namesake Grace Odigwe was born in Umunnachi.Template:Sfn James studied mathematics at University College, Ibadan until his graduation in 1957. He married Grace on 15 April 1963,Template:Sfn and moved with her to Berkeley, California to complete his PhD degree at the University of California.Template:Sfn While in the United States, the couple had two daughters: ljeoma Rosemary and Uchenna.Template:Sfn James returned to Nigeria and began working as a professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1966.Template:Sfn Grace began her university studies in 1964, at Merritt College in Oakland, California, and then later earned a degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Nigeria.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

The Biafran War broke out in 1967 and James started working for the Biafran governmentTemplate:Sfn at the Biafran Manpower Directorate.Template:Sfn Adichie lost her maternal and paternal grandfathers during the war.Template:Sfn After Biafra ceased to exist in 1970, her father returned to the University of Nigeria,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn while her mother worked for the government at Enugu until 1973, before becoming an administration officer at the University of Nigeria, and later the first female registrar.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Adichie stayed at the campus of the University of Nigeria, in a house previously occupied by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.Template:Sfn Her siblings include Ijeoma Rosemary, Uchenna "Uche", Chukwunweike "Chuks", Okechukwu "Okey", and Kenechukwu "Kene".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Adichie was raised Catholic,Template:Sfn and her family's home parish was St. Paul's Parish in Abba.Template:Sfn At her Catholic confirmation, she changed her English name from Grace to Amanda, under which name her first work was published.<ref name="punchng"/>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Adichie's father died of kidney failure in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic,Template:Sfn and her mother died in 2021.Template:Sfn

Early life and education

As a child, Adichie read only English-language stories, especially by Enid Blyton. Her juvenilia included stories with characters who were white and blue-eyed, modeled on British children she had read about.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn At the age of 10, she discovered African literature and read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe,Template:Sfn The African Child by Camara Laye,Template:Sfn Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta.Template:Sfn Adichie began to study her father's stories about Biafra when she was 13 years old. On visits to Abba, she saw houses that were destroyed and rusty bullets scattered on the ground. She would later incorporate these memories and her father's accounts into her novels.Template:Sfn

In her formal education, Adichie was taught in both Igbo and English.Template:Sfn Although Igbo was not a popular subject, she continued taking courses in the language throughout high school.Template:Sfn She completed her secondary education at the University of Nigeria Campus Secondary School, with top distinction in the West African Examinations Council (WAEC),Template:Sfn and academic prizes.Template:Sfn She was admitted to the University of Nigeria, where she studied medicine and pharmacy for a year and half.Template:Sfn She was also the editor of The Compass, a student-run university magazine.Template:Sfn In 1997, at the age of 19, Adichie published Decisions, a collection of poems, and later moved to the United States,Template:Sfn to study communications at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In 1998, she wrote a play called For Love of Biafra.Template:Sfn These early works were written under the name Amanda N. Adichie.Template:Sfn

Two years after moving to the United States, she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut, living with her sister Ijeoma, who was a medical doctor there.Template:Sfn In 2000, Adichie published her short story "My Mother, the Crazy African".Template:Sfn After finishing her undergraduate degree, she continued studying and simultaneously pursuing a writing career.Template:Sfn While a senior at Eastern Connecticut, she wrote articles for the university paper Campus Lantern.Template:Sfn She received her bachelor's degree summa cum laude with a major in political science and a minor in communications in 2001.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn She earned a master's degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in 2003,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and for the next two years was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, where she taught introductory fiction.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn She began studying at Yale University, and completed a second master's degree in African studies in 2008.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Adichie received a MacArthur Fellowship that same year,Template:Sfn plus other academic prizes, including the 2011–2012 Fellowship of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.Template:Sfn

Writing career

While studying in the US, Adichie started researching and writing her first novel, Purple Hibiscus.Template:Sfn She sent her manuscript to publishing houses and literary agents, who either rejected it or requested that she change the setting from Africa to America, so as to make it more familiar to a broader range of readers. Eventually, Djana Pearson Morris, a literary agent working at Pearson Morris and Belt Literary Management, accepted the manuscript.Template:Sfn Morris recognized that marketing would be challenging, since Adichie was Black but neither African-American nor Caribbean. Morris submitted it to potential publishers until it was eventually accepted by Algonquin Books, a small independent company, in 2003.Template:Sfn Fourth Estate published the novel in the United Kingdom in 2004,Template:Sfn while Kachifo Limited published it in Nigeria in the same year.Template:Sfn According to Otosirieze Obi-Young, the novel has been translated into more than forty languages.Template:Sfn

Woman sitting at a table signing books, surrounded by a crowd of other people

Adichie at the reading and signing of her work Americanah in Berlin, Germany (2014)

Adichie began writing her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun. According to her, she spent four years researching about the subject of the novel, while studying her father's memories of the period and Buchi Emecheta Template:`s 1982 novel Destination Biafra.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The novel was published in 2006 by Anchor Books; in France as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in 2008 by Éditions Gallimard.Template:Sfn In 2009, Adichie married Nigerian doctor Ivara Esege.Template:Sfn The couple primarily lives in the US, where Adichie has Nigerian nationality and permanent resident status,Template:Sfn but also maintains a home in Nigeria.Template:Sfn

While completing her Hodder and MacArthur fellowships, Adichie published short stories in various magazines.Template:Sfn Twelve of these stories were collected in her third book, The Thing Around Your Neck, published by Knopf in 2009.Template:Sfn Adichie's fourth book Americanah was published in 2013.Template:Sfn Adichie was a visiting writer at the University of Michigan on the Flint campus in 2014, where she held workshops and lectures that discusses Purple Hibiscus, Americanah, and her personal writing experiences. Clips from her talks "The Danger of a Single Story" and "We Should All Be Feminists" were also aired and discussed.Template:Sfn In 2015, she wrote a letter to a friend and posted it on Facebook in 2016. Comments on the post convinced her to turn it to a book,Template:Sfn Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, which was published in 2017.Template:Sfn Adichie bore her daughter in 2016.Template:Sfn In 2020, she published "Zikora", a stand-alone short story about sexism and single motherhood,Template:Sfn and an essay "Notes on Grief" in The New Yorker, after her father's death. She expanded the essay into a book of the same name that was published by Fourth Estate the following year.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

In 2020, Adichie adapted and published We Should All Be Feminists in an edition for children, illustrated by Leire Salaberria.Template:Sfn Translations of it were authorised for publication in Croatian, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.Template:Sfn Adichie spent a year and a half working on her first children's book, Mama's Sleeping Scarf, which was written in 2019, and was published in 2023 by HarperCollins under the pseudonym Nwa Grace James.Template:Efn Template:Sfn Illustrations for the book were by Joelle Avelino, a Congolese-Angolan illustrator.Template:Sfn Adichie has twin boys in 2024 through surrogacy.Template:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2025, she published Dream Count.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Writing

Style and techniques

Adichie uses both Igbo and English in her works,Template:Sfn with Igbo phrases shown in italics, followed by the English translation.Template:Sfn She uses metaphors to trigger sensory experiences,Template:Sfn for example, the arrival of a king to challenge colonial and religious leaders in Purple Hibiscus symbolises Palm Sunday.Template:Sfn Her use of language referencing Achebe's Things Fall Apart invokes the memories of his work to her readers.Template:Sfn Similarly, the name of Kambili, a character in Purple Hibiscus, evokes "{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}" ("Live and Let Live"), the title of a song by Igbo musician Oliver De Coque.Template:Sfn To describe pre- and post-war conditions, she moves from good to worse as seen in Half of a Yellow Sun, in which one of her characters begins by opening the refrigerator and sees oranges, beer, and a "roasted shimmering chicken". These contrast to later in the novel where one of her characters dies of starvation, and others are forced to eat powdered eggs and lizards.Template:Sfn Adichie usually uses real places and historic figures to draw readers into her stories.Template:Sfn

In developing characters, Adichie often exaggerates attitudes to contrast the differences between traditional and western cultures.Template:Sfn Her stories often point out failed cultures, particularly those which leave her characters in a limbo between bad options.Template:Sfn At times, she creates a character as an oversimplified archetype of a particular aspect of cultural behavior to create a foil for a more complex character.Template:Sfn

Igbo tradition

Adichie gives her characters recognisable common names for an intended ethnicity, such as Mohammed for a Muslim character.Template:Sfn For Igbo characters, she invents names that convey Igbo naming traditions and depict the character's traits, personality, and social connections.Template:Sfn For example, in Half of a Yellow Sun, the character's name Ọlanna literally means "God's Gold", but Nwankwọ points out that {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} means precious and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} means father (which can be understood as either God the father or a parent).Template:Sfn She typically does not use English names for African characters but, when she does, it is a device to represent negative traits or behaviours.Template:Sfn

Adichie draws on figures from Igbo oral tradition to present facts in the style of historical fiction.Template:Sfn She breaks with tradition in a way that contrasts with traditional African literature, given that women writers were often absent from the Nigerian literary canon,Template:Sfn and female characters were often overlooked or served as supporting material for male characters who were engaged in the socio-political and economic life of the community.Template:Sfn Her style often focuses on strong women and adds a gendered perspective to topics previously explored by other authors, such as colonialism, religion, and power relationships.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Adichie often separates characters into social classes to illustrate social ambiguities and traditional hierarchies.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn By using narratives from characters of different segments of society, as she reiterates in her TED talk, "The Danger of a Single Story", she conveys the message that there is no single truth about the past.Template:Sfn Adichie is encouraging her readers to recognise their own responsibility to one another, and the injustice that exists in the world.Template:Sfn Nigerian scholar Stanley Ordu classifies Adichie's feminism as womanist because her analysis of patriarchal systems goes beyond sexist treatment of women and anti-male bias, looking instead at socio-economic, political and racial struggles women face to survive and cooperate with men.Template:Sfn For example, in Purple Hibiscus, the character Auntie Ifeoma embodies a womanist view through making all family members to work as a team and with consensus, so that each person's talents are utilised to their highest potential.Template:Sfn

In both her written works and public speaking, Adichie incorporates humour, and uses anecdotes, irony and satire to underscore a particular point of view.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Adichie has increasingly developed a contemporary Pan-Africanist view of gender issues, becoming less interested in the way the West sees Africa and more interested in how Africa sees itself.Template:Sfn

Major themes

Adichie, in a 2011 conversation with Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, stated that the overriding theme of her works was love.Template:Sfn Using the feminist argument "The personal is political", love in her works is typically expressed through cultural identity, personal identity and the human condition, and how social and political conflict impact all three.Template:Sfn Adichie frequently explores the intersections of class, culture, gender, (post-)imperialism, power, race and religion.Template:Sfn Struggle is a predominant theme throughout African literature,Template:Sfn and her works follow that tradition by examining families, communities, and relationships.Template:Sfn Her explorations go beyond political strife and the struggle for rights, and typically examine what it is to be human.Template:Sfn Many of her writings deal with the way her characters reconcile themselves with trauma in their livesTemplate:Sfn and how they move from being silenced and voiceless to self-empowered and able to tell their own stories.Template:Sfn

Adichie's works, beginning with Purple Hibiscus, generally examine cultural identity.Template:Sfn Igbo identity is typically at the forefront of her works, which celebrate Igbo language and culture, and African patriotism, in general.Template:Sfn Her writing is an intentional dialogue with the West, intent on reclaiming African dignity and humanity.Template:Sfn A recurring theme in Adichie's works is the Biafran War, which contributed to the post-colonial history of Nigeria. Half of a Yellow Sun highlights how policies, corruption, religious dogmatism and strife played into the expulsion of the Igbo population and then forced their reintegration into the nation.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Both actions had consequences, and Adichie presents the war as an unhealed wound because of political leaders' reluctance to address the issues that sparked it.Template:Sfn

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka reappears in Adichie's novels to illustrate the transformative nature of education in developing political consciousness, and symbolises the stimulation of Pan-African consciousness and a desire for independence in Half of a Yellow Sun. It appeared in both Purple Hibiscus and Americanah as the site of resistance to authoritarian rule through civil disobedience and dissent by students.Template:Sfn The university teaches the colonial accounts of history and develops the means to contest its distortions through indigenous knowledge,Template:Sfn by recognising that colonial literature tells only part of the story and minimises African contributions.Template:Sfn Adichie illustrates this in Half of a Yellow Sun, when mathematics instructor {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, explains to his houseboy, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, that he will learn in school that the Niger River was discovered by a white man named Mungo Park, although the indigenous people had fished the river for generations. However, Odenigbo cautions Ugwu that, even though the story of Park's discovery is false, he must use the wrong answer or he will fail his exam.Template:Sfn

Adichie's works about African diaspora consistently examine themes of belonging, adaptation and discrimination.Template:Sfn This is often shown as an obsession to assimilate and is demonstrated by characters changing their names,Template:Sfn a common theme in Adiche's short fiction, which serves to point out hypocrisy.Template:Sfn By using the theme of immigration, she is able to develop dialogue on how her characters' perceptions and identity are changed by living abroad and encountering different cultural norms.Template:Sfn

In Dear Ijeawele or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions she evaluates themes of identity that recur in Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and The Thing Around Your Neck such as stereotypical perceptions of Black women's physical appearance, their hair and their objectification.Template:Sfn Dear Ijeawele stresses the political importance of using African names,Template:Sfn rejecting colourism,Template:Sfn exercising freedom of expression in how they wear their hair (including rejecting patronising curiosity about it)Template:Sfn and avoiding commodification, such as marriageability tests, which reduce a woman's worth to that of a prize, seeing only her value as a man's wife.Template:Sfn Her women characters repeatedly resist being defined by stereotypes and embody a quest for women's empowerment.Template:Sfn

Adichie's works often deal with inter-generational explorations of family units, allowing her to examine differing experiences of oppression and liberation. In both Purple Hibiscus and "The Headstrong Historian"—one of the stories included in The Thing Around Your Neck—Adichie examined these themes using the family as a miniature representation of violence.Template:Sfn Female sexuality, both within patriarchal marriage relationships and outside of marriage, is a theme that Adichie typically uses to explore romantic complexities and boundaries. Her work discusses homosexuality in the context of marital affairs in stories such as "Transition to Glory", and taboo topics such as romantic feelings for clergy in Purple Hibiscus, as well as the seduction of a friend's boyfriend in "Light Skin". Miscarriage,Template:Sfn motherhood and the struggles of womanhood are recurring themes in Adichie's works, and are often examined in relation to Christianity, patriarchy, and social expectation.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn For example, in the short story "Zikora", she deals with the interlocking biological, cultural and political aspects of becoming a mother and expectations placed upon women.Template:Sfn The story examines the failure of contraception and an unexpected pregnancy, abandonment by her partner, single motherhood, social pressure and Zikora's identity crisis, and the various emotions she experiences about becoming a mother.Template:Sfn

Adichie's works show a deep interest in the complexities of the human condition. Recurrent themes are forgiveness and betrayal, as in Half of a Yellow Sun, when Olanna forgives her lover's infidelity, or Ifemelu's decision to separate from her boyfriend in Americanah.Template:Sfn Adichie's examination of war shines a light on how both sides of any conflict commit atrocities and neither side is blameless for the unfolding violence. Her narrative demonstrates that knowledge and understanding of diverse classes and ethnic groups is necessary to create harmonious multi-ethnic communities.Template:Sfn Other forms of violence—including sexual abuse, rape, domestic abuse, and rage—are repeated themes in Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and the stories collected in The Thing Around Your Neck,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn these themes symbolise the universality of power, or the impact and manifestation in society of its misuse.Template:Sfn

Legacy

Influence

Larissa MacFarquhar of The New Yorker stated that Adichie is "regarded as one of the most vital and original novelists of her generation".Template:Sfn Her works have been translated into more than 30 languages.Template:Sfn Obi-Young Otosirieze pointed out in his cover story about Adichie for the Nigerian magazine Open Country Mag in September 2021, that "her novels ... broke down a wall in publishing. Purple Hibiscus proved that there was an international market for African realist fiction post-Achebe [and] Half of a Yellow Sun showed that that market could care about African histories".Template:Sfn In an earlier article published in Brittle Paper, he stated that Half of a Yellow SunTemplate:'s paperback release in 2006 sold 500,000 copies, the benchmark of commercial success for a book, by October 2009 in the UK alone.Template:Sfn Her novel Americanah sold 500,000 copies in the US within two years of its 2013 release.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:As of, "The Danger of a Single Story" had received more than 27 million views.Template:Sfn As of 1 September 2023, the talk is one of the top 25 most viewed TED Talks of all time.Template:Sfn

According to Lisa Allardice, a journalist writing for The Guardian, Adichie became the "poster girl for modern feminism after her 2012 TED Talk 'We Should All Be Feminists' went stratospheric and was distributed in book form to every 16-year-old in Sweden".Template:Sfn Adichie has become "a global feminist icon" and a recognised "public thinker" per journalist Lauren Alix Brown.Template:Sfn Parts of Adichie's TEDx Talk were sampled in the song "Flawless" by singer Beyoncé on 13 December 2013. When asked in an NPR interview about that, Adichie responded that "anything that gets young people talking about feminism is a very good thing."Template:Sfn She later refined the statement in an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, saying that she liked and admired Beyoncé and gave permission to use her text because the singer "reached many people who would otherwise probably never have heard the word feminism." But, she went on to state that the sampling caused a media frenzy with requests from newspapers world-wide who were keen to report on her new-found fame because of Beyoncé. Adichie said, "I am a writer and I have been for some time and I refuse to perform in this charade that is now apparently expected of me". She was disappointed by the media portrayal, but acknowledged that "Thanks to Beyoncé, my life will never be the same again."Template:Sfn Adichie was outspoken against critics who later questioned the singer's credentials as a feminist because she uses her sexuality to "pander to the male gaze". In defence of Beyoncé, Adichie said: "Whoever says they're feminist is bloody feminist."Template:Sfn

Scholar Matthew Lecznar said that Adichie's stature as "one of most prominent writers and feminists of the age" allowed her to use her celebrity "to demonstrate the power of dress and empower people from diverse contexts to embrace [fashion] ... which has everything to do with the politics of identity".Template:Sfn Academics Floriana Bernardi and Enrica Picarelli credited her support of the Nigerian fashion industry with helping put Nigeria "at the forefront" of the movement to use fashion as a globally-recognised political mechanism of empowerment.Template:Sfn Toyin Falola, a professor of history, in an evaluation of scholarship in Nigeria, criticised the policy of elevating academic figures prematurely. He argued that scholarship, particularly in the humanities, should challenge policies and processes to strengthen the social contract between citizens and government. He suggested that the focus should shift from recognising scholars who merely influenced other scholars to acknowledging intellectuals who use their talents to benefit the state and serve as mentors to Nigerian youth. Adichie was among those he felt qualified as "intellectual heroes", who had "push[ed] forward the boundaries of social change".Template:Sfn

File:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - mural Ciudad Lineal (cropped).jpg

Adichie on the Concepción Feminist Mural in Madrid, Spain

Adichie's book Half of a Yellow Sun was adapted into a film of the same title directed by Biyi Bandele in 2013.Template:Sfn In 2018, a painting of Adichie was included in a wall mural at the Municipal Sport Center in the Concepción barrio of Madrid, along with 14 other historically influential women. The 15 women were selected by members of the neighborhood to give a visible representation of the role of women in history and to serve as a symbol of equality. The neighborhood residents defeated a move by conservative politicians to remove the mural in 2021 through a petition drive of collected signatures.Template:Sfn

Luke Ndidi Okolo, a lecturer a Nnamdi Azikiwe University said:Template:Sfn

Adichie's novel treats clear and lofty subjects and themes. But the subjects and themes, however, are not new to African novels. The remarkable difference of excellence in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus is the stylistic variation—her choice of linguistic and literary features, and the pattern of application of the features in such a wondrous juxtaposition of characters' reasoning and thought.{{#if:|

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Adichie's work has garnered significant critical acclaim and numerous awards.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Book critics such as Daria Tunca wrote that Adichie's work is considerably relevant and stated that she was a major voice in the Third Generation of Nigerian writers,Template:Sfn while Izuu Nwankwọ called her invented Igbo naming scheme as an "artform", which she has perfected in her works.Template:Sfn He lauded her ability to insert Igbo language and meaning into an English-language text without disrupting the flow or distorting the storyline.Template:Sfn In the judgement of Ernest Emenyonu, one of the most prominent scholars of Igbo literature,Template:Sfn Adichie was "the leading and most engaging voice of her era" and he has described her as "Africa's preeminent storyteller".Template:Sfn Toyin Falola, a professor of history, hailed her along other writers, as "intellectual heroes".Template:Sfn Her memoir, Notes on Grief was positively praised by Kirkus Reviews as "an elegant, moving contribution to the literature of death and dying."Template:Sfn Leslie Gray Streeter of The Independent said that Adichie's view on grief "puts a welcome, authentic voice to this most universal of emotions, which is also one of the most universally avoided."Template:Sfn She has been widely recognised as "the literary daughter of Chinua Achebe".Template:Sfn Jane Shilling of the Daily Telegraph called her "one who makes storytelling seem as easy as birdsong".Template:Sfn

Adichie has gained wide praise for her speeches and lectures.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Media and communications professor Erika M. Behrmann, who reviewed Adichie's TEDxEuston Talk, "We Should All Be Feminists" praised her as a "gifted storyteller", who was able to intimately connect with her audience. Behrmann stated that the talk used language that made it relatable to children and adults, giving a basic foundation for students to learn about feminist ideas and issues, as well as learning about how gender is socially constructed by culture. She also said that Adichie demonstrated that gender inequality is a global challenge, and offered solutions to combat disparities by focussing less on gender roles and more on developing skills based upon ability and interests.Template:Sfn However, Behrmann criticised the lack of discussion in the talk on the intersectional aspects of peoples' identities and Adichie's reliance on binary terms (boy/girl, man/woman, male/female), which left "little room to imagine and explore how transgender and genderqueer" people contribute to or are impacted by feminism.Template:Sfn Emenyonu said that her "talks, blogs, musings on social media, essays and commentaries, workshop mentoring for budding writers and lecture circuit discourses ... expand and define her mission as a writer".Template:Sfn Scholar Grace Musila said Adiche's brand encompasses her reputation as a writer, public figure, and fashionista, which expanded her reach and the legitimacy of her ideas far beyond academic circles.Template:Sfn

Critical reputation

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Adichie received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008,Template:Sfn with her other academic awards including the 2011–2012 Fellowship of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.Template:Sfn In 2002, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "You in America".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn She also won the BBC World Service Short Story Competition for "That Harmattan Morning", while her short story "The American Embassy" won the 2003 O. Henry Award and the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize from PEN International.Template:Sfn

Her 2003 debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, was well received, earning positive reviews.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The book sold well and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Best Book (2005), Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2004).Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) garnered further acclaim, including winning the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007,Template:Sfn the International Nonino Prize (2009),Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.Template:Sfn Adichie's story collection The Thing Around Your Neck was the runner-up to the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for 2010.Template:Sfn One story from the book, "Ceiling", was included in The Best American Short Stories 2011.Template:Sfn Americanah was listed among The New York Times "10 Best Books of 2013",Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and won the National Book Critics Circle Award (2014),Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and the One City One Book (2017).Template:Sfn Her book Dear Ijeawele, translated into French as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, won the Le Grand Prix de l'Héroïne Madame Figaro in the category of best non-fiction book in 2017.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

A Black woman with short, curly hair speaks into a microphone in a warmly lit room. She is wearing a black and white striped dress and layered necklaces. Behind her are wooden-framed windows and decorative cobwebs on the wall. A water pitcher sits on the table in front of her, and there are people in the audience.

Adichie at an event related to her book The Thing Around Your Neck, 2010

Adichie was a finalist of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction (2014).Template:Sfn She won the Barnard Medal of Distinction (2016),Template:Sfn and the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal (2022), the highest honour in the field of African and African American studies from Harvard University.Template:Sfn She was listed in The New YorkerTemplate:'s "20 Under 40" authors in 2010, and in 2014 was selected for Africa39, a project initiated by the Hay Festival.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Sfn She was named on the Time 100 list in 2015,Template:Sfn and was on The Africa ReportTemplate:'s list of the "100 Most Influential Africans" in 2019.Template:Sfn In 2018, she was selected as the winner of the PEN Pinter Prize, which recognises writers whose body of literary work uncovers truth through critical analysis of life and society. The award recipient chooses the winner of the companion prize, the Pinter International Writer of Courage Award, for which Adichie named Waleed Abulkhair, a Saudi Arabian lawyer and human rights activist.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Women's Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize, selected 25 candidates for its Winner of Winners in honour of its 25th anniversary celebrations in 2020. The public chose Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun for the award.Template:Sfn

In 2017, Adichie was elected as one of 228 new members to be inducted into the 237th class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, making her the second Nigerian to be given the honour after Wole Soyinka.Template:Sfn As of March 2022, Adichie had received 16 honorary degrees from universitiesTemplate:Sfn President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari selected her as a recipient of the Order of the Federal Republic in 2022,Template:Sfn but Adichie rejected the national distinction.Template:Sfn On 30 December 2022, Adichie was honoured with the title of "Odeluwa", a chieftaincy position, by her hometown of Abba in Anambra State, making her the first woman to receive a chieftaincy title in Abba.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Works

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

Novels

Short story collections

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Urujzian, Vero-Ekpris Gladstone. "Proverbs and metaphors as discursive strategies in selected novels by Achebe and Adichie." LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research 20, no. 1 (2023): 72-86.
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Template:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Template:Women's Prize for Fiction Template:Authority control

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Contents

Biography

Birth and family

Early life and education

Writing career

Writing

Style and techniques

Igbo tradition

Major themes

Legacy

Influence

Critical reputation

Works

Novels

Short story collections

Memoirs

Nonfiction books

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links

Navigation menu

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Biography

Birth and family

Early life and education

Writing career

Writing

Style and techniques

Igbo tradition

Major themes

Legacy

Influence

Critical reputation

Works

Novels

Short story collections

Memoirs

Nonfiction books

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links

Navigation menu

Search