We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.įifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. Thank you for your art Nodu na ndokwa.” Other books Adichie has cited as having been important in her reading include Camara Laye’s The African Child and the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby. We are able to speak because you first spoke. From this she realized that people who looked like herself could “live in books.” She has also named Buchi Emecheta as a Nigerian literary inspiration, upon whose death Adichie said: “Buchi Emecheta. By 2022, Adichie has been awarded 16 honorary doctorate degrees.Īdichie’s initial inspiration came from Chinua Achebe, when she read his 1958 novel Things Fall Apartat the age of 10. Throughout her academic career, Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University, awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant”, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study from Harvard University.

In 2008, Adichie graduated from Yale University with a Master of Arts degree in African studies. That same year she completed her master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. 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. And, of course, she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Connecticut State University.

She first began studying medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria, but by 19 she left for the US to study communications and political science. Unfortunately, they lost everything including both her grandfathers during the Nigerian Civil War. Her father worked as a professor of statistics at the University of Nigeria while her mother became the first female registrar at the same university. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie IMAGE VIA THE GUARDIANīorn in Enugu, Nigeria, Adichie was raised around education and forward thinking.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie