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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Memoir & Personal Growth
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer known for fiction, nonfiction, and public lectures, and is a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature.
Biography
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born 15 September 1977 into an Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria. She was educated at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where she studied medicine for a year and a half, and left Nigeria at 19 to continue her studies in the United States at Drexel University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University. She began writing during her university years, publishing a poetry collection, Decisions (1997), and a play, For Love of Biafra (1998), before achieving early success with her debut novel Purple Hibiscus. Many of her novels are set in Nsukka, where she grew up.
Adichie’s work spans fiction, nonfiction, and lectures, and she cites Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta as inspirations. Her style juxtaposes Western and African influences with particular reference to Igbo culture, and her writing commonly explores religion, immigration, gender, and culture. She is also a frequent public speaker, known for TED Talks such as "The Danger of a Single Story" and "We Should All Be Feminists," and has spoken at multiple commencement ceremonies. Her honours and recognition include academic and literary prizes, fellowships, grants, honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Notes on Grief
Notes on Grief is a compact meditation and remembrance written after Adichie’s father died from complications of kidney failure in the summer of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic kept family members apart. Expanding on an original New Yorker piece, she weaves her experience of grief with his life story — his survival during the Biafran war, his long career as a statistics professor, and his connections with family in Abba, Nigeria — in a short format likened to her earlier brief works.