While in secondary school, we were mandated to read Purple Hibiscus. Initially, I didn't like it. Why? Because, it was kinda big for me. In SS1, there were many notes to copy so why read this? But since it was listed among what must be read for West African Examinations Council (WAEC), I had to start reading it. I read it ( Purple Hibiscus) in SS1, SS2 and its one novel I love so much. Some how, I feel like looking up the author's profile and I saw that she is one of those African ladies that have made it through thick and thin and come out tall, huge and strong! Its not just Purple Hibiscus, there are many other books to her credit. Join me as we go through Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's profile Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria.
Adichie, who was born in the city of Enugu,
grew up the fifth of six children in an Igbo
family in the university town of Nsukka .
Nsukka is in southeastern Nigeria, where the
University of Nigeria is situated. While she
was growing up, her father, James Nwoye
Adichie, was a professor of statistics at the
university, and her mother, Grace Ifeoma, was
the university's first female registrar. Her
family's ancestral village is in Abba in
Anambra State.
Adichie studied medicine and pharmacy at the
University of Nigeria for a year and a half.
During this period, she edited The Compass, a
magazine run by the university's Catholic
medical students. At the age of 19, Adichie
left Nigeria for the United States to study
communications and political science at
Drexel University in Philadelphia. She soon
transferred to Eastern Connecticut State
University to be near her sister, who had a
medical practice in Coventry. She received a
bachelor's degree from Eastern, with the
distinction of summa cum laude in 2001.
Her work has been translated into thirty
languages and has appeared in various
publications , including The New Yorker , Granta ,
The O . Henry Prize Stories , the Financial Times ,
and Zoetrope. She is the author of the novels
Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize and the Hurston /Wright Legacy
Award, and Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the
Orange Prize and was a National Book Critics
Circle Award Finalist , a New York Times Notable
Book , and a People and Black Issues Book Review
Best Book of the Year; and the story collection
The Thing Around Your Neck . Her latest novel
Americanah, was published around the world in
2013, and has received numerous accolades ,
including winning the National Book Critics Circle
Award for Fiction and The Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize for Fiction; and being named one
of The New York Times Ten Best Books of the
Year.
A recipient of a MacArthur Foundation
Fellowship, she divides her time between the
United States and Nigeria. Writing Career
Adichie published a collection of poems in
1997 ( Decisions ) and a play ( For Love of
Biafra ) in 1998. She was shortlisted in 2002
for the Caine Prize for her short story
"You in America".
In 2003, her story "That Harmattan Morning"
was selected as a joint winner of the BBC
Short Story Awards, and she won the O. Henry
prize for "The American Embassy". She also
won the David T. Wong International Short
Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award).
Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003),
received wide critical acclaim; it was
shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction
(2004) and was awarded the Commonwealth
Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005).
Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006),
named after the flag of the short-lived nation
of Biafra, is set before and during the Nigerian
Civil War. It received the 2007 Orange Prize
for Fiction and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
Half of a Yellow Sun has been adapted
into a film of the same title directed by Biyi
Bandele , starring BAFTA winner and Academy
Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor and BAFTA
award-winner Thandie Newton , and was
released in 2014.
Her third book, The Thing Around Your Neck
(2009), is a collection of twelve dazzling
stories that explore the ties that bind men
and women, parents and children, Africa and
the United States.
In 2010 she was listed among the authors of
The New Yorker ′s "20 Under 40" Fiction Issue.
[16] Adichie's story, "Ceiling", was included in
the 2011 edition of The Best American Short
Stories .
Her third novel, Americanah (2013), an
exploration of a young Nigerian encountering
race in America, was selected by the New
York Times as one of The 10 Best Books of
2013.
In April 2014, she was named as one of 39
writers aged under 40 in the Hay Festival
and Rainbow Book Club project Africa39,
celebrating Port Harcourt UNESCO World Book
Capital 2014.
In 2015, she was co-curator of the PEN World
Voices Festival.
Adichie says on feminism and writing, "I think
of myself as a storyteller, but I would not
mind at all if someone were to think of me as
a feminist writer... I'm very feminist in the
way I look at the world, and that world view
must somehow be part of my work." SOURCE: www.wikipedia.org & www.chimamanda.com
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