Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, short-story writer and activist. Regarded as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature, she is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Americanah (2013). Her other works include the book of essays We Should All Be Feminists (2014); Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017); a memoir, Notes on Grief (2021); and a children's book, Mama's Sleeping Scarf (2023).
Jay Rubin is an American translator, writer, scholar and Japanologist. He is one of the main translators of the works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami into English. He has also written a guide to Japanese, Making Sense of Japanese, and a biographical literary analysis of Murakami.
The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is an annual week-long literary festival held in New York City and Los Angeles. The festival was founded by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts and was launched in 2005. The festival includes events, readings, conversations, and debates that showcase international literature and new writers. The festival is produced by PEN America, a nonprofit organization that works to advance literature, promote free expression, and foster international literary fellowship.
Purple Hibiscus is a novel by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, published on 30 October 2003 by Algonquin Books. Narrated in the first person, Kambili Achike, the central character struggles to find her voice as the daughter of a wealthy, devout Catholic businessman, Eugene who violently abuses his family. Her brother, Jaja, eventually rebels against their father, choosing to live with Aunty Ifeoma, Papa Nnukwu, and Father Amadi, all of whom influence his—and as a result, Kambili's—beliefs and cultural knowledge. Kambili's mother, Beatrice, poisons Eugene, but Jaja takes the blame to protect her, leading to his imprisonment. Purple Hibiscus, Adichie's debut novel, is set in post-colonial Nigeria and explores themes of religion, family, and colonisation.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was published in 2006 by 4th Estate. The novel, set in Nigeria, tells the story of the Biafran War through the perspective of the characters Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard.
One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories is a collection of short stories, published in 2009 by New Internationalist. Edited by Chris Brazier, the book contains 23 short stories by 23 different authors who represent 14 different countries and five continents. The collection was put together by Nigerian writers Ovo Adagha and Molara Wood, and includes stories by notable authors, such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jhumpa Lahiri as well as many up-and-coming writers such as Petina Gappah, winner of the 2009 Guardi, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Elaine Chiew, a recipient of the Bridport Prize, and Chika Unigwe, winner of the 2003 BBC Short Story Competition and a Commonwealth Short Story Competition award.
The Thing Around Your Neck is a short-story collection by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, first published in April 2009 by Fourth Estate in the UK and by Knopf in the US. It received many positive reviews, including: "She makes storytelling seem as easy as birdsong" ; "Stunning. Like all fine storytellers, she leaves us wanting more".
Americanah is a 2013 novel by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for which Adichie won the 2013 U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze. It was Adichie's third novel, published on May 14, 2013, by Alfred A. Knopf.
Africa39 was a collaborative project initiated by the Hay Festival in partnership with Rainbow Book Club, celebrating Port Harcourt: UNESCO World Book Capital 2014 by identifying 39 of the most promising writers under the age of 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in the development of literature from Africa and the African diaspora. Launched in 2014, Africa39 followed the success of two previous Hay Festival initiatives linked to World Book Capital cities, Bogotá39 (2007) and Beirut39 (2009).
We Should All Be Feminists is a book-length essay by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. First published in 2014 by Fourth Estate, it talks about the definition of feminism for the 21st century.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is an American geographer and writer. Among his books are Island People: The Caribbean and the World (2016), Names of New York (2021) and, with the writer Rebecca Solnit, Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (2016). Jelly-Schapiro is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Believer, Artforum, Transition, and The Nation.
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between is a memoir by Hisham Matar that was first published in June 2016. The memoir centers on Matar's return to his native Libya in 2012 to search for the truth behind the 1990 disappearance of his father, a prominent political dissident of the Gaddafi regime. It won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the inaugural 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the 2017 Folio Prize, becoming the first nonfiction book to do so.
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions is an epistolary form manifesto written by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Dear Ijeawele was posted on her official Facebook page on October 12, 2016, was subsequently adapted into a book, and published in print on March 7, 2017.
Kiru Taye is a Nigerian writer, who specializes in romance novels.
There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra is a personal account by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe of the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War. It is considered one of the defining works of modern African non-fiction. Released in October 2012, six months prior to Achebe's death, it is the author's last published book.
A Promised Land is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the presidential memoir documents Obama's life from his early years through to the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. The book is 768 pages long and available in digital, paperback, and hardcover formats and has been translated into two dozen languages. There is also a 29-hour audiobook edition that is read by Obama himself.
Notes on Grief is a 2021 memoir written by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Presented in 30 short sections, Notes on Grief was written following the death of her father James Nwoye Adichie in June 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is expanded from an essay first published in The New Yorker. As The New York Times notes: "What she narrates is not only father loss, but the ways Mr. Adichie endures in having made of her a writer."
Mama's Sleeping Scarf is a 2023 children's picture book written by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie under the pseudonym Nwa Grace-James and illustrated by Congolese-Angolan illustrator Joelle Avelino. The narrative centers on Chino, a young child who finds solace in her mother's scarf while awaiting her return.
"Zikora" is a short story (2020) written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian author of various other literary works, including Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah. "Zikora" is an engaging story about a woman who reflects on the current state of her life as she is about to have a baby without a spouse.
