Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born on 15 September 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria, into an Igbo family and raised on the University of Nigeria campus in Nsukka, in a house once occupied by Chinua Achebe. She moved to the United States at nineteen and attended Eastern Connecticut State University (BA summa cum laude, 2001), Johns Hopkins University (MA in creative writing, 2003), and Yale University (MA in African studies, 2008). Her works blend Western and African elements, exploring culture, gender, immigration, and the Biafran War. Adichie's debut novel Purple Hibiscus (2003) was followed by Half of a Yellow Sun (2006, Orange Prize winner) and the international bestseller Americanah (2013, National Book Critics Circle Award). Her 2009 TED Talk 'The Danger of a Single Story' and 2012 talk 'We Should All Be Feminists' gained global circulation, the latter sampled by Beyoncé. A MacArthur Fellow since 2008, she has become one of the most prominent voices on feminism and race in contemporary literature.