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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer, whose works include fiction, nonfiction, and lectures. She is widely recognised as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature.
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culture · Nigerian writer (born 1977) · cook · poet · novelist · short story writer · non-fiction writer · journalist · writer · satirical novelist · also Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Adichie, Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda Adichie
Born 15 September 1977 · Q230141
108 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 25 entries
“but I admire Lupita very much and she is probably going to option Americanah . ... I don”
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“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
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“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
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“I am not apologetic for being a Nigerian. I won’t apologise for it; it’s who and what I am.”
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“A successful story for me exist in a moral universe, not one where goodness always triumph, because that would be false but one with an inherent awareness of goodness”
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“I have always longed to be known, truly known by another human being.”
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“Feminism for me is about justice; it’s about the idea that all human beings are equal… Feminism just means equality of opportunity.”
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“Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is it this belonging, this completeness?”
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“Eugene has to stop doing God's job. God is big enough to do his own job. If God will judge our father for choosing to follow the way of our ancestors, then let God do the judging, not Eugene.”
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“There was a helplessness to his joy, the same kind of helplessness as in that woman’s despair.”
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“This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.”
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“This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles”
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“...my point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe...I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.”
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“Greatness depends on where you are coming from.”
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“A gorgeous pitless account of love, violence and betrayal.”
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“There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.”
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“I cannot control even the dreams that I have made.”
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“People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.”
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BellaNaija: Some Selected Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Iconic and Memorable Lectures
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Public attention spiked: 2,518 Wikipedia readers in one day, 4.1× the usual 621, with 0 article edits.
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The Guardian: Death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son prompts calls for overhaul of Nigeria’s healthcare sector
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The Guardian: Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie accuses Lagos hospital of negligence after son’s death
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The Guardian: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reveals her one-year-old son has died after a short illness
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Yahoo: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s one-year-old son dies due to illness
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2025· 13 entries
The Guardian: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says she is terrified her sons will ‘join manosphere’
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The Guardian: ‘We must unite’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s rallying cry at Nigerian literature festival
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Awarded honorary doctorate from Sorbonne University (2025).
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The Guardian: Where to start with: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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The Guardian: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review – candid conversations with friends
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The Guardian: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review – a tale of four women
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The Guardian: ‘Cancel culture? We should stop it. End of story’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on backlash, writer’s block – and her new baby twins
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“If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more.”
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Adichie published her novel Dream Count, a novel about four African women whose lives intertwine as they face love, loss, and resilience across Nigeria and America
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“I’ve always been willing to take the consequences of speaking my mind. ... No, no, no. I said what I believe.”
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“Social media has reshaped the traditional power dynamic by giving some access to the powerless, it has also made it easy to mistake the loudest voices for the truest.”
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“Writing fiction is the love of my life. It's the thing that I think gives me meaning.”
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“Women in general are more likely to have richer interior lives and are also socialized to just sort of embrace more complexity emotionally.”
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2022· 1 entry
But Adichie rejected the national distinction
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2021· 4 entries
Awarded BBC 100 Women (2021).
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Through a petition drive of collected signatures
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By 2021, Adichie stated that she was a nominal Catholic and only attended Mass when she could find a progressive community focused on uplifting humanity.
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“I look to stories for consolation,the kind of small consolation that one needs to want to wake up everyday;as template for life;for news on how others live;for reminders that life's mysteries have no key”
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2020· 4 entries
Adichie adapted and published We Should All Be Feminists in an edition for children, illustrated by Leire Salaberria
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Adichie published "Zikora", a stand-alone short story about sexism and single motherhood, and an essay titled "Notes on Grief" in The New Yorker, after her father's death
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, and her mother died in 2021
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When Adichie said in an interview with The Guardian that she found J
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2019· 4 entries
Bustle: Why Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Thinks Young Women Should Stop Apologizing
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Perfectly captured the spirit of the "bold LGBTQ activist [of] the African literary world where homosexuality is still treated as a fringe concept
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As part of the Chancellor's Lecture Series, she gave the speech "Writer, Thinker, Feminist: Vignettes from Life" at Vanderbilt University's Langford Auditorium
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And was published in 2023 by HarperCollins under the pseudonym Nwa Grace James
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2018· 9 entries
Awarded PEN Pinter Prize (2018).
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The New Yorker: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Discovering America
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A painting of Adichie was included in a wall mural at the Municipal Sport Center in the Concepción barrio of Madrid, along with 14 other women
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Was selected as the winner of the PEN Pinter Prize, which recognises writers whose body of literary work uncovers truth through critical analysis of life and society
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“There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. You must read books and learn both answers.”
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“I feel that I have been fortunate to have found success, and I also want the young writers to have what I did not have when I was starting out my writing career … Writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum; we talk about politics, everything.”
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Spoke at the seventh annual International Igbo Conference
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For the campaign, and in 2019 was selected as one of 15 women to appear on the cover of British Vogue in an issue guest-edited by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
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“We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.”
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2017· 6 entries
Awarded OkayAfrica 100 Women (2017).
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“Los estereotipos limitan nuestro pensamiento y le dan forma, particularmente los estereotipos sobre África. Me da la impresión de que la palabra "feminista", y la idea en sí del feminismo, también se ven constreñidas por los estereotipos.”
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“Não acho que sou mais propenso a fazer trabalhos domésticos ou cuidar de crianças ... Não vem pré-programado em sua vagina, certo?”
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“Escolher escrever é rejeitar o silêncio.”
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Adichie was elected as one of 228 new members to be inducted into the 237th class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, making her the second Nigerian to be given the honour after Wole Soyinka
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“has lived as a man, with the privileges the world accords to men”
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2016· 5 entries
Forbes: The Cultural Importance of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Boots Beauty Campaign
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Yahoo: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on When Language Fails Her
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Was invited by the BBC to appear on Newsnight and give her thoughts on the 2016 election of Donald Trump
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And twin boys in 2024, as Adichie revealed in an interview with British newspaper The Guardian
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They have three children; their daughter was born in 2016, and twin boys in 2024, as Adichie revealed in an interview with British newspaper The Guardian.
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2015· 6 entries
Los Angeles Times: All 16-year-olds in Sweden to get copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Feminists’ essay
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Bustle: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Talked With Zadie Smith
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On 2 May 2015, Adichie's father was kidnapped and was later released some days later.
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Adichie wrote an email to a friend and later posted it on Facebook in 2016
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Adichie delivered a commencement address for Wellesley College
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And was on The Africa Report's list of the "100 Most Influential Africans" in 2019
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2014· 1 entry
Was among the Nigerian writers who objected the law, calling it unconstitutional, unjust and "a strange priority to a country with so many real problems"
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2013· 3 entries
KQED: Beyonce and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Make Feminism Go Viral
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Awarded National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for Americanah (2013).
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And the birth of her daughter in 2016 drew her back to the Catholic faith and spurred her decision to raise her child as Catholic
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2012· 2 entries
Urged leaders to preach messages of peace and togetherness
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Delivered a talk titled "We Should All Be Feminists" for TEDxEuston in London
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2010· 1 entry
And in 2014 was selected for Africa39, a project initiated by the Hay Festival
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2009· 2 entries
Awarded International Nonino Prize (2009).
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“The Danger of a Single Story”
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2008· 4 entries
Awarded MacArthur Fellows Program (2008).
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And induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017
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With her other academic awards including the 2011–2012 Fellowship of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University
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Adichie started compiling short stories that she had already published in magazines
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2007· 3 entries
Awarded Women's Prize for Fiction for Half of a Yellow Sun (2007).
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Awarded Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for Half of a Yellow Sun (2007).
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The International Nonino Prize (2009), and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
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2006· 3 entries
By Anchor Books, a trade-paperback imprint of Alfred A
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“Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.”
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Sold 500,000 copies, the benchmark of commercial success for a book, by October 2009 in the UK alone
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2004· 1 entry
Fourth Estate published the novel in the United Kingdom, while Kachifo Limited published it in Nigeria
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2003· 2 entries
Awarded O. Henry Award (2003).
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And for the next two years was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, where she taught introductory fiction
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2002· 1 entry
Was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "You in America"
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2000· 1 entry
Adichie published her short story "My Mother, the Crazy African", which discusses the problems that arise when a person is facing two cultures that are complete opposites from each other
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1998· 1 entry
Wrote a play called For Love of Biafra, which was her initial exploration of the theme of war
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1997· 1 entry
At the age of 19, Adichie published Decisions, a collection of poems, and later moved to the United States, to study communications at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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1977· 1 entry
Born 1977-09-15.
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1970· 1 entry
Her father returned to the University of Nigeria, while her mother worked for the government at Enugu until 1973, before becoming an administration officer at the University of Nigeria, and later the first female registr
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1967· 1 entry
And Adichie's father started working for the Biafran government at the Biafran Manpower Directorate
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1964· 1 entry
At Merritt College in Oakland, California, and then later earned a degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Nigeria
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1957· 1 entry
Married Grace on 15 April 1963, and moved with her to Berkeley, California, to complete his PhD degree at the University of California
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