Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  www.adrianpastol.com

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 15 September 1977) is a writer from Nigeria, Born in the city of Enugu, she grew up the fifth of six children in an Igbo family in the university town of Nsukka in southeastern Nigeria, her father James Nwoye Adichie was a professor of statistics at the university, and her mother Grace Ifeoma was the university's first female registrar. But by origin, she is from Abba in Anambra State.

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 and moved to the United States for college. After studying communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University to live closer to her sister, who had a medical practice in Coventry. She received a bachelor's degree from Eastern, where she graduated 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 in African studies from Yale University.

Adichie published a collection of poems in 1997 (Decisions) and a play (For Love of Biafra) in 1998. She was shortlisted in 2002 for the Caine Prize for her short story "You in America".

In 2003, her story "That Harmattan Morning" was selected as joint winner of the BBC Short Story Awards, and she won the O. Henry prize for "The American Embassy". She also won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award), for "Half of a Yellow Sun".

Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), received wide critical acclaim; it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2004) and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005).

Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, named after the flag of the short-lived nation of Biafra, is set before and during the Biafran War. It was awarded the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. Half of a Yellow Sun has been adapted into a film staring Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor and BAFTA award winner Thandie Newton and was released in 2014.

Her third book, The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), is a collection of short stories.

In 2010 she was listed among the authors of The New Yorker′s "20 Under 40" Fiction Issue. Adichie's story, "Ceiling", was included in the 2011 edition of The Best American Short Stories.

In 2013 she published her third novel, Americanah which was selected by the New York Times as one of The 10 Best Books of 2013.

In a modern world of differences, Adichie as she chooses to be addressed has proved again that Africans can be seen and heard, her TED Talks appearances has been some of the watched clips.  

Adichie teaches us focus and how to be an achiever. If Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie can be this successful, why can't you. 

I DARE YOU TO BE. 

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Partly culled from Wikipedia