Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Biography

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (September 15, 1977) Born in Enugu, Nigeria. Writer and playwright considered one of the most relevant writers of the 21st century. In her works, she claims her African roots, talks about topics such as prejudice, racism, violence, and discrimination. The writer’s career began in the early 2000s, at which time the writer was studying Eastern University. Throughout her career, she has published The Purple Flower (2003), Mid Yellow Sun (2006), Something Around Your Neck (2009), Americanah (2013), Dear Ijeawele and How to educate in feminism (2017), these were critically acclaimed, being awarded the Commonwealth Writers ’Prize, the Orange Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, among others. In recent years Adichie has participated in various conferences, among them his TED talk entitled The Danger of A Single Story and the We Should All Be Feminists conference, which was published in 2014 as a book.

Adichie was born into a family of Igbo ethnicity, her parents are Grace Ifeoma and James Nwoye Adichie, who used to work at the University of Nigeria, where they worked as a professor of statistics in Nigeria and a registrar of the institution. Later on, the father of Adichie would be appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University, although he is currently retired. Adichie grew up with her family in Nsukka, in the house that was previously occupied by the prominent Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whom Adichie has admired since she was young. Chimamanda carried out her studies at the university school, where she excelled for her intelligence and talent, thus obtaining various academic awards, subsequently began her higher education studying medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria.

During this period, Adichie served as editor of The Compass magazine, a publication directed by university students. In 1996 Chimamanda obtained a scholarship to study Communication at the University of Drexel in Philadelphia, which is why she moved to the United States with only nineteen years. She studied at Drexel for two years, shortly after entering the State University of Eastern Connecticut where she studied Political Science while studying participated as a writer in the university magazine, Campus Lantern. During this period she lived with her sister Ijeoma, who at that time was doing her medical practicum near the university. Later, Adichie entered Eastern University from which summa cum laude graduated in 2001, followed by her master’s degree in Creative Writing at Johns Hopkins University.

Career

While carrying out her studies at Eastern University she began writing her first novel The Purple Flower (Purple Hibiscus), a book that was published in October 2003. In the book, Adichie tells the story of Kambili, a fifteen-year-old girl whose Family environment is surrounded by the abuse of her father against the family. However, this tries to look away without understanding what happens in the family environment, this changes when the two children of the family visit their aunt Ifeoma, who gives them the love and respect they deserved. When they understand their father’s behavior, young people change and refuse to let him not treat them properly, so family tension grows. After the publication of the novel, Adichie rose to fame, her approach to a subject as serious and complicated as abuse and violence earned him various awards such as the Orange Fiction Prize in 2004 and the Commonwealth Award for the best first book in 2005 Between 2005 and 2006

Adichie was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, a period in which she wrote her next book.

The second novel by the renowned writer was published in 2006, with the title of Half Yellow Sun (Half of a Yellow Sun), a book set in the period before and after the Nigerian Civil War known as the Biafra War (1967-1970). In this, Adichie tells the story of three young people who, when the war breaks out, must defend their ideals and beliefs, following the story of these, the writer delves into the country’s instability and religious fanaticism. Two years later Adichie, obtained her master’s degree in African Studies from Yale University, shortly thereafter published Something around Your Neck (The Thing around Your Neck), a compilation of stories about Nigerians living in the United States.

Two years later she obtained a scholarship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, studied at the institute between 2011 and 2012.

During this period she wrote her third novel, Americanah, which was published in 2013. Americanah delves into the life of a young woman who moved to the United States from Pulling his crush on, she faces racism and wonders if her personality will change and she will become an Americanah, a term used to refer to Nigerians returning to the country with airs. For this same period, she held the We Should All Be Feminists conference, in which she rescues the importance of feminism, this was published as a book in 2014.

That same year she participated in the TED lecture series with The Danger of A Single Story, in which the writer explains the need for other speeches besides the Western one, speeches that show other realities, which address the world from different perspectives, since the Western view of other cultures has silenced various stories and realities, creating stereotypes that are far from the diversity of voices and cultures that inhabit this world.

Adichie raised the need for “a balance of stories” that would allow the construction of a broader and closer to reality imaginary. In 2017 he published Dear Ijeawele. How to educate in feminism, a book in which the writer highlights the importance of training people in gender equality and respect.