Adichie, who was born in the city of Enugu is a Nigerian novelist, nonfiction writer and short story
writer.A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Adichie has been called
"the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed
young anglophone authors that is succeeding in attracting a new generation of
readers to African literature".
Adichie studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of
Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass, a
magazine run by the university's Catholic medical students. At the age of 19,
Adichie left Nigeria for the United States to study communications and
political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She soon transferred to
Eastern Connecticut State University to be near her sister, who had a medical
practice in Coventry. She received a bachelor's degree from Eastern, with the
distinction of summa cum laude in 2001.
In 2003, she completed a master's degree in creative writing
at Johns Hopkins University. In 2008, she received a Master of Arts degree in
African studies from Yale University.
Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University during
the 2005–06 academic year. In 2008 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.She has also been awarded a 2011–12 fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for
Advanced Study, Harvard University.
She is uncompromisingly unconventional and is unafraid to
talk issues that many would rather stay silent on; her thought-provoking
articles challenge the conventional mode of thinking. Her book, ‘We should all
be feminists’ adapted from her 2012 TED Talk has been adopted by Sweden as part
of its efforts to promote gender inequality. The message of the book has also
been adopted as guide to conversations in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. Beyonce
also sampled excerpts from Chimamanda’s TED talk on her Flawless song.
Adichie divides her time between Nigeria, where she teaches
writing workshops, and the United States.In 2016, she was conferred an
honorary degree - Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Johns Hopkins
University.
