In 2003, Adichie completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University. She received a bachelor's degree from ECSU, summa cum laude, in 2001. She transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) to be near her sister Uche, who had a medical practice in Coventry, Connecticut. Īt the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria for the United States to study communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During this period, she edited The Compass, a magazine run by the university's Catholic medical students. She studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria for a year and a half. Education Īdichie completed her secondary education at the University of Nigeria Secondary School, Nsukka, where she received several academic prizes. Her family's ancestral village is Abba in Anambra State. The family lost almost everything during the Nigerian Civil War, including both her maternal and paternal grandfathers. They lived in a house on campus previously occupied by Chinua Achebe. Her mother, Grace Ifeoma (1942–2021), was the university's first female registrar. While she was growing up, her father, James Nwoye Adichie (1932–2020), worked as a professor of statistics at the University of Nigeria. She was raised in the university town of Nsukka in Enugu State.

Early life and family Īdichie was born in the city of Enugu in Nigeria, the fifth of six children in an Igbo family. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award). 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. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021. She was the recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize in 2018. In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), Zikora (2020) and Notes on Grief (2021). She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as 'the most prominent' of a 'procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature', particularly in her second home, the United States.Īdichie 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). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about The Thing Around Your Neck on Bookbits radioĬhimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( / ˌ tʃ ɪ m ɑː ˈ m ɑː n d ə ə ŋ ˈ ɡ oʊ z i ə ˈ d iː tʃ eɪ/ ( listen) CHIM-ah- MAHN-də əng- GOH-zee ə- DEE-chay born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction.

Americanah von chimamanda ngozi adichie