Friday, 14 April 2023

OUR ROLE MODEL: CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE


Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "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", particularly in her second home, the United States.

Adichie has written the novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists (2014). Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), Zikora (2020) and Notes on Grief (2021).

In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. She was the recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize in 2018.

Adichie was born in the city of Enugu in Nigeria, the fifth of six children in an Igbo family. She was raised in the university town of Nsukka in Enugu State.While she was growing up, her father, James Nwoye Adichie (1932–2020), worked as a professor of statistics at the University of Nigeria. Her mother, Grace Ifeoma (1942–2021), was the university's first female registrar. They lived in a house on campus previously occupied by famous author Chinua Achebe. The family lost almost everything during the Nigerian Civil War, including both her maternal and paternal grandfathers. Her family's ancestral village is Abba in Anambra State

Adichie completed her secondary education at the University of Nigeria Secondary School, Nsukka, where she received several academic prizes. She 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 PhiladelphiaPennsylvania. She transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) to be near her sister Uche, who had a medical practice in Coventry, Connecticut. She received a bachelor's degree from ECSU, summa cum laude, in 2001.

In 2003, Adichie completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University.  Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University during the 2005–2006 academic year.In 2008, she received a Master of Arts degree in African studies from Yale University. Also in 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.[9] She was awarded a 2011–2012 fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced StudyHarvard University.

Adichie has been awarded sixteen honorary doctorate degrees from universities including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of EdinburghDuke UniversityGeorgetown UniversityJohns Hopkins University, and the Catholic University of Louvain, where she received her sixteenth in a ceremony on 28 April 2022

In 2009, Adichie married Ivara Esege, a Nigerian doctor. They have one daughter, who was born in 2016.

Adichie divides her time between the United States and Nigeria, where she teaches writing workshops

In 2002, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story "You in America", and her story "That Harmattan Morning" was selected as a joint winner of the 2002 BBC World Service Short Story Awards. In 2003, she won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award).

In 2010 she was listed among the authors of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" Fiction Issue. 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 April 2017, it was announced that Adichie had been elected into the 237th class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the highest honours for intellectuals in the United States, as one of 228 new members to be inducted on 7 October 2017.

Adichie holds sixteen honorary doctorate degrees from some of the world’s best universities including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of EdinburghDuke UniversityGeorgetown UniversityJohns Hopkins University, and the Catholic University of Louvain.[27] In 2016, she was conferred an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Johns Hopkins University. In 2017, she was conferred honorary degrees, Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Haverford College and The University of Edinburgh. In 2018, she received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Amherst College. She received an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, from the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2019. On 20 May 2019, Ngozi Adichie received an honorary degree from Yale University. On 28 April 2022, she received her sixteenth honorary doctorate degree from the Catholic University of Louvain.



On 13 October 2022, a member of Adichie ’s communications team confirmed to Nigerian Newspaper, The Guardian, that she rejected a national awards to be conffered on her by President Muhammadu Buhari. "“The author did not accept the award and, as such, did not attend the ceremony


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