Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie, Lagos 2009
Born	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie September 15, 1977 (1977-09-15) Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria
Nationality	Nigerian
Ethnicity	Igbo
Period	2003-present
Notable work(s)	Purple Hibiscus Half of a Yellow Sun
Influences Enid Blyton, Chinua Achebe, VS Naipaul

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born September 15, 1977) is a Nigerian writer.

Her family is of Igbo descent. She has been called "the most prominent" of "[a] procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [which] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature".

Early life and education

Born in the town of Enugu, she grew up in the university town of Nsukka in south-eastern Nigeria, where the University of Nigeria is situated. While she was growing up, her father was a professor of statistics at the University, and her mother worked there as the university registrar.

At the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria and moved to the United States for college. After studying at Drexel University in Philadelphia, she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University to live closer to her sister, who had a medical practice in Coventry (now in Mansfield, Connecticut). She continued studying communications and political science. She received a university degree from Eastern, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2001.

In 2003, she completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 2008, she received a Master of Arts in African studies at Yale University.

Career

Adichie had her first novel Purple Hibiscus published in 2003. It received excellent reviews and won a literary award for first books. Her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun, named after the flag of the short-lived nation of Biafra, is set before and during the Biafran War. Published by Fourth Estate in the UK and by Knopf/Anchor in 2006, it was awarded the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Her third book, a collection of short stories titled The Thing Around Your Neck, was published in April 2009 by Fourth Estate in the UK and Knopf in the US.

Adichie's story Ceiling was included in the 2011 edition of The Best American Short Stories.

External links

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Quality Street", Guernica Magazine
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Reading, Southbank Centre, London, April 2009
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Half of a Yellow Sun", Literary Potpourri
• "Orange Prize Shortlist", The Guardian
• The Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Website (Unofficial)
• "The new face of Nigerian literature?"
• Chimamanda Adichie speaks at TED: "The Danger of a Single Story", July 2009
• Audio: Chimanda Adichie, on The Forum, BBC World Service discussion
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's articles, 5th Estate blog