Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author. She has won numerous accolades for her works, including general literature prizes and academic honours. Her short stories have garnered multiple awards including the O. Henry Award for "The American Embassy" [1] and BBC National Short Story Award for "That Harmattan Morning". [2] Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus , won the Best First Book category of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, [3] and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Best Debut Fiction in 2005. [4] Since the paperback publication of her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun in 2007, The Guardian reported that it had sold only 187,000 copies, yet won the Women's Prize for Fiction – which was then the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction – for which it competed against a book by a Man Booker Prize winner (Kiran Desai 's The Inheritance of Loss ) and a US bestseller (Anne Tyler 's Digging to America ). [5] Along with Ernest Hardy, Harryette Mullen, and Alberto Ríos, she also won the PEN Beyond Margins Award. [6] Her third novel, Americanah , won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2013. Her short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck , was nominated for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2010 [7] and her book-length essay Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions won the PEN Pinter Prize, and the Grand Prix de l'héroïne Madame Figaro for its French translation. Adichie's fourth novel Dream Count was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2025. [8]
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Adichie's early career awards include The Future Awards Africa for Young Person of the Year and MacArthur Foundation 's "genius grant", both in 2008. In 2013, she was listed in the "100 Most Influential Africans" by New African ; CNN named her among the "Leading Women of 2014"; Time named her in its 100 Most Influential People in 2015; the fashion magazine Vanity Fair listed her in the "International Best Dressed List" of 2016. In November 2019, she became the first Nigerian and first African woman to receive the United Nations Global Leadership Award for which she was cited as "using literature and storytelling to connect with people across generations and cultures on issues of gender and racial equality and being a leader on the frontlines of global progress"; [9] in September 2019, she was awarded the "Prism of Reason", a citizens' award, in Kassel, Germany for "her literary contributions and her advocacy for human rights and diversity"; [10] Later awards include the Action Against Hunger humanitarian award in 2018 for her "significant contributions in the humanitarian field" [11] and for her "contributions to humanity through her literary works and her public engagements which have played huge roles in effecting change and a better understanding of issues such as identity and feminism", the Belle van Zuylenring in 2020. In 2022 Adichie rejected the Order of the Federal Republic, a national honour by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Academic bodies have bestowed multiple honours on Adichie. She has received honorary degrees from many universities, among them, the Eastern Connecticut State University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Georgetown University, and the University of Johannesburg. In 2022, Adichie was awarded the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, Harvard University 's highest honour. [12] Her other honours include election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [13] and American Academy of Arts and Letters, both in 2017. [14]
