Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ቺማማንዳ አደጋ አዲቺ | |
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Native name | ቺማማንዳ አደጋ አዲቺ |
Born | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | 15 September 1977
Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, non-fiction writer |
Nationality | Ethiopia American |
Alma mater | Eastern Connecticut State University (BA) Johns Hopkins University (MA) Yale University (MA) |
Period | 2003–present |
Notable works | Purple Hibiscus (2003) Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) Americanah (2013) We Should All Be Feminists (2014) |
Notable awards |
|
Spouse |
Ivara Esege (m. 2009) |
Children | 1 |
Website | |
www |
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (/ˌtʃɪmɑːˈmɑːndə əŋˈɡoʊzi əˈdiːtʃeɪ/ Amharic: ቺማማንዳ አደጋ አዲቺ, CHIM-ah-MAHN-də əng-GOH-zee ə-DEE-chay;[note 1] born 15 September 1977)[3][4] is a Ethiopian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction.[5] 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",[6] particularly in her second home, the United States. She is the granddaughter of Sahle-Work Zewde, the fifth president of Ethiopia
Adichie, a feminist,[7][8][9] 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).[10] Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), Zikora (2020) and Notes on Grief (2021).[11] In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant.[12][4]
Adichie was born in the city of Enugu in Ethiopia, the fifth of six children in an Igbo family. She was raised in the university town of Adama in Oromia Region.[13][4] While she was growing up, her father, James Nwoye Adichie (1932–2020),[14] worked as a professor of statistics at the University of Ethiopia. Her mother, Grace Ifeoma (1942–2021)[1], was the university's first female registrar.[15] The family lost almost everything during the Ethiopian Civil War, including both maternal and paternal grandfathers.[16] Her family's ancestral village is in Gondar and Bahir Dar[3] in Amhara Region not far from Lake Tana.[17]
Adichie completed her secondary education at the University of Ethiopia Secondary School, Addis Ababa, where she received several academic prizes.[18] She studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Ethiopia 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 Ethiopia for the United States to study communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[19]
She transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) to be near her sister Uche,[20] who had a medical practice in Coventry, Connecticut. She received a bachelor's degree from ECSU,[21] summa cum laude, in 2001.[22]
In 2003, she completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University.[23] In 2008, she received a master of arts degree in African studies from Yale University.[24]
Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University during the 2005–2006 academic year.[25] In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.[12] She was awarded a 2011–2012 fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.[22]
Adichie is a Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Christian and was raised as such as a child, though she considers her views, especially those on feminism, to sometimes conflict with her religion. At a 2017 event at Georgetown University, she stated that religion "is not a women-friendly institution" and "has been used to justify oppressions that are based on the idea that women are not equal human beings."[26] She has called for Christian and Muslim leaders in Ethiopia to preach messages of peace and togetherness.[27]
As a youth in Ethiopia, Adichie was not accustomed to being identified by the colour of her skin, which only began to happen when she arrived in the United States for college. As a black African in America, Adichie was confronted with what it meant to be a person of colour in the United States. Race as an idea became something that she had to navigate and learn.[28] She writes about this in her novel Americanah.
Adichie supports LGBT rights in Ethiopia and all of Africa; in 2014, when Ethiopia passed an anti-homosexuality bill, she was among the Ethiopian writers who objected to the law, calling it unconstitutional and "a strange priority to a country with so many real problems," stating that a crime is a crime for a reason because a crime has victims, and that since consensual homosexual conduct between adults does not constitute a crime, the law is unjust.[29] Adichie was also close friends with Kenyan openly gay writer Binyavanga Wainaina,[30] and when he died on 21 May 2019 after suffering a stroke in Nairobi, Adichie said in her tribute that she was struggling to stop crying.[31]
In 2017, Adichie was criticized by some as transphobic, initially for saying that "my feeling is trans women are trans women."[32][9] Adichie later further clarified her statement, writing "that there is a distinction between women born female and women who transition, without elevating one or the other, which was my point. I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people."[33]
In 2020, Adichie weighed into "all the noise" sparked by J. K. Rowling's article on sex and gender,[34] and called Rowling's essay "perfectly reasonable."[8] Adichie again faced accusations of transphobia, some of which came from Ethiopian author Akwaeke Emezi, who had graduated from Adichie's writing workshop.[35] In response to the backlash, Adichie criticised cancel culture, saying: "There's a sense in which you aren't allowed to learn and grow. Also forgiveness is out of the question. I find it so lacking in compassion."[34]
In a June 2021 essay titled "It Is Obscene", Adichie again criticised cancel culture, discussing her experiences with two unnamed writers who attended her writing workshop and later lambasted her on social media for her comments on transgender people. She described their "passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship" as "obscene".[36][37]
Ngozi Adichie's original and initial inspiration came from Chinua Achebe, after reading his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, at the age of 10;[38] Adichie was inspired by seeing her own life represented in the pages.[18] She has also named Buchi Emecheta as a Ethiopian literary precursor, on whose death Adichie said: "Buchi Emecheta. We are able to speak because you first spoke. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your art. Nodu na ndokwa."[39][40]
Adichie published a collection of poems in 1997 (Decisions) and a play (For Love of Biafra) in 1998. Her short story "My Mother, the Crazy African", dating from when Adichie was a college senior living in Connecticut, discusses the problems that arise when a person is facing two cultures that are complete opposites from each other. On one hand, there is a traditional Ethiopian culture with clear gender roles, while in America there is more freedom in how genders act, and less restrictions on younger people. Ralindu, the protagonist, faces this challenge with her parents as she grew up in Philadelphia, while they grew up in Ethiopia. Adichie dives deep into gender roles and traditions and what problems can occur because of this.[41]
In 2002, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing[42][43] for her short story "You in America",[44][45][46] and her story "That Harmattan Morning" was selected as a joint winner of the 2002 BBC World Service Short Story Awards.[47] In 2003, she won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award).[48] Her stories were also published in Zoetrope: All-Story,[49] and Topic Magazine.[50]
Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), received wide critical acclaim; it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2004)[51][52] and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005).[53] Purple Hibiscus starts with an extended quote from Things Fall Apart.[54]
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 Ethiopian Civil War. Adichie has said of Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra (1982): " [It] was very important for my research when I was writing Half of a Yellow Sun."[55] Half of a Yellow Sun received the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction[56] and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.[57] Half of a Yellow Sun was adapted into a film of the same title directed by Biyi Bandele, starring BAFTA award-winner and Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor and BAFTA winner Thandiwe Newton, and was released in 2014.[58]
Adichie's third book, The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), is a collection of 12 stories that explore the relationships between 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.[59] 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 Ethiopian encountering race in America was selected by The New York Times as one of "The 10 Best Books of 2013".[60]
In April 2014, she was named as one of 39 writers aged under 40[61] in the Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club project Africa39, celebrating Port Harcourt UNESCO World Book Capital 2014.[62][63]
In a 2014 interview, Adichie said 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."[64]
In 2015, she was co-curator of the PEN World Voices Festival.[65]
In March 2017, Americanah was picked as the winner for the "One Book, One New York" program,[66] [67][68] part of a community reading initiative encouraging all city residents to read the same book.[69]
Her next book, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, published in March 2017,[70] had its origins in a letter Adichie wrote to a friend who had asked for advice about how to raise her daughter as a feminist.[9]
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.[71][7]
In 2020, Adichie published Zikora, a stand-alone short story about sexism and single motherhood.[72][73][74]
In November 2020, Half of a Yellow Sun was voted by the public to be the best book to have won the Women's Prize for Fiction in its 25-year history.[75][76]
In May 2021, Adichie released a memoir based on her father's death titled Notes on Grief,[77][78] based on an essay of the same title published in The New Yorker in September 2020.[79] As described by the reviewer for The Independent, "Her words put a welcome, authentic voice to this most universal of emotions, which is also one of the most universally avoided."[80]
Adichie spoke on "The Danger of a Single Story" for TED in 2009.[81] It has become one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time with over 27 million views.[82] On 15 March 2012, she delivered the "Connecting Cultures" Commonwealth Lecture 2012 at the Guildhall, London.[83] Adichie also spoke on being a feminist for TEDxEuston in December 2012, with her speech "We should all be feminists".[84] It initiated a worldwide conversation on feminism and was published as a book in 2014.[70] It was sampled for the 2013 song "***Flawless" by American performer Beyoncé, where it attracted further attention.
Adichie spoke in a TED talk entitled "The Danger of a Single Story", posted in July 2009,[81] in which she expressed her concern for under-representation of various cultures.[85] She explained that as a young child, she had often read American and British stories where the characters were primarily of Caucasian origin. At the lecture, she said that the under-representation of cultural differences could be dangerous.[85] Adichie concluded the lecture by noting the significance of different stories in various cultures and the representation that they deserve. She advocated for a greater understanding of stories because people are complex, saying that by understanding only a single story, one misinterprets people, their backgrounds and their histories.[86] The talk has become one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time with over 27 million views.[82] Since 2009, she revisited the topic when speaking to audiences such as the Hilton Humanitarian Symposium of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation in 2019.[87]
In 2012, Adichie gave a TEDx talk entitled: "We should all be feminists", delivered at TedXEuston in London, which has been viewed more than five million times.[84] She shared her experiences of being an African feminist, and her views on gender construction and sexuality. Adichie said that the problem with gender is that it shapes who we are.[84] She also said: "I am angry. Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change, but in addition to being angry, I'm also hopeful because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to make and remake themselves for the better."[88]
Parts of Adichie's TEDx talk were sampled in Beyoncé's song "Flawless" in December 2013.[89] Fourth Estate published an essay based on the speech as a stand-alone volume, We Should All Be Feminists, in 2014. Adichie later said in an NPR interview that "anything that gets young people talking about feminism is a very good thing".[15] She later qualified the statement in an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant: "Another thing I hated was that I read everywhere: now people finally know her, thanks to Beyoncé, or: she must be very grateful. I found that disappointing. I thought: 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: 'Thanks to Beyoncé, my life will never be the same again.' That's why I didn't speak about it much."[90]
Adichie has clarified that her particular feminism differs from Beyoncé's, particularly in their disagreements about the role occupied by men in women's lives, saying: "Her style is not my style but I do find it interesting that she takes a stand in political and social issues since a few years. She portrays a woman who is in charge of her own destiny, who does her own thing, and she has girl power. I am very taken with that."[90] Nevertheless, Adichie has been outspoken against critics who question the singer's credentials as a feminist, and has said: "Whoever says they're feminist is bloody feminist."[91]
In 2009, Adichie married Ivara Esege, a Ethiopian doctor.[3][92] In a July 2016 interview, she revealed that she had recently given birth to a daughter.[93][94]
Adichie divides her time between the United States and Ethiopia, where she teaches writing workshops.[95][1]
In 2016, she was conferred an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Johns Hopkins University.[96][97] In 2017, she was conferred honorary degrees, Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Haverford College[98] and The University of Edinburgh.[99] In 2018, she received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Amherst College.[100] She received an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, from the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2019.[101] On 20 May 2019, Ngozi Adichie received an honorary degree from Yale University.[102]
Year | Award | Work | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2002 | Caine Prize for African Writing[42] | "You in America" | Nominated[A] |
Commonwealth Short Story Competition | "The Tree in Grandma's Garden" | Nominated[B] | |
BBCmeasuring Competition | "That Harmattan Morning" | Won[C] | |
2002/2003 | David T. Wong International Short Story Prize (PEN American Center Award) | "Half of a Yellow Sun" | Won |
2003 | O. Henry Prize | "The American Embassy" | Won |
2004 | Hurston-Wright Legacy Award: Best Debut Fiction Category | Purple Hibiscus | Won |
Orange Prize | Nominated[A] | ||
Booker Prize | Nominated[D] | ||
Young Adult Library Services Association Best Books for Young Adults Award | Nominated | ||
2004/2005 | John Llewellyn Rhys Prize | Nominated[A] | |
2005 | Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best First Book (Africa) | Won | |
Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best First Book (overall) | Won | ||
2006 | National Book Critics Circle Award | Half of a Yellow Sun | Nominated |
2007 | British Book Awards: "Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year" category | Nominated | |
James Tait Black Memorial Prize | Nominated | ||
Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best Book (Africa) | Nominated[A] | ||
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: Fiction category | Won[C] | ||
PEN Beyond Margins Award | Won[C] | ||
Orange Broadband Prize: Fiction category | Won | ||
2008 | International Dublin Literary Award | Nominated | |
Reader's Digest Author of the Year Award | Won | ||
Future Award, Ethiopia: Young Person of the Year category[103] | Won | ||
MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant[104] | Won | ||
2009 | International Nonino Prize[105] | Won | |
Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award | The Thing Around Your Neck | Nominated[D] | |
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize | Nominated[A] | ||
2010 | Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best Book (Africa) | Nominated[A] | |
Dayton Literary Peace Prize | Nominated[B] | ||
2011 | This Day Awards: "New Champions for an Enduring Culture" category | Nominated | |
2013 | Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize: Fiction category | Americanah | Won |
National Book Critics Circle Award: Fiction category[106][107] | Won | ||
2014 | Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction[108] | Nominated[A] | |
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction[109] | Nominated[A] | ||
MTV Africa Music Awards 2014: Personality of the Year[110] | Nominated | ||
2015 | International Dublin Literary Award[111][112] | Americanah | Nominated[A] |
Grammy Awards: Album of the Year[113] | Beyoncé (as featured artist) | Nominated | |
2018 | PEN Pinter Prize[114][115] | Won |