Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: A decade
of literature, politics and cultural activism
By Ransome Mgbeahuru and Godwin
Okondo
05 January 2020
The
new decade is looking better for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as she is set
to receive the first Belle van Zuylenring this month, starting off where she
left last decade. An honorary prize set by the ILFU International Literature
Festival Utrecht, Adichie is receiving the prize “because of the unique
way in which she knows how to display and question the world of today and its
ingrained thinking patterns.”
Last
decade was surely the lady’s.
From receiving five honorary doctorate degrees in one year to her bestselling book Half of a Yellow Sun being listed in BBC’s ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’ and more, 2019 seemed to be the year with some of the greatest achievements for the writer.
Chimamanda has
bagged nothing less than 15 honourary doctorate degrees from respected
universities around the world including Doctor of Letters, (D. Litt)
honoris causa, from Yale University; Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa
from Georgetown University, Northwestern and American Universities;
honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at Rhode Island School of Design and
her latest honorary degree from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland in
November 2019. Her 2009 TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story,
is currently one of the most viewed TED Talks of all
time with 5.7 million views. In 2010, she
was among The New Yorker’s ‘20 Under 40”; a list devoted to
young fiction writers, who the editors believe are, or will be, key to their
generation.
An
entire decade. Where were you 10 years ago? How far have you come from this
past decade? It is beyond amazing how much has been achieved in
such a long while as time passes without human slightest permission on how fast
or slow it should be.What started out as a fan-driven exercise on Twitter
tagged #ChimamandaDecade, has inspired the need to recap the renowned writer’s
achievements in the last decade even as the world welcomes a New Year and a new
decade. Each year of this past decade has been nothing but achievements upon
great achievements for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She has come so far from being the
new author in the block who stole hearts with her debut novel, Purple
Hibiscus, to becoming not just a writer but a feminist and fashion icon
who is duly recognised as a Global Force for Change. Let’s have a recap, shall
we?
The
Nigerian government gave her the Global Ambassador Achievement
Award in 2011. Her 2012 TEDx Euston talk, We Should
All Be Feminists, gave more prominence to the feminism world. It
was published into a book and had excerpts featured in Beyonce’s
song, Flawless, in 2014. In 2016, it was also customised on T-shirts
by the first female Creative Director of Christian Dior, Maria Grazia
Chiuri. This piece has been worn by celebrities including Rihanna, Kylie
Jenner, Jennifer Lawrence, Demi Lovato and Asap Rocky.
She was listed by
CNN among the ‘Leading Women of 2014’ and was nominated for Forbes
Africa ‘Person of the Year’ that same year and the next. In
2015, her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun won the ‘Best of the
Best’ in the 20th anniversary of the Baileys Women’s Prize
for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize for Fiction).
She
was also honoured with Girls Write Now Awards; Groundbreaker
honouree. ARISE Magazine listed her as one of the ‘100 Dynamic
Women’ in recognition of the strive she puts into her area of
expertise. Time Magazine, which referred to her as a ‘Conjurer of
Character’ listed her among its ‘100 Most Influential People’.
As
a fashion icon, she was named one of the best dressed people in the
world by Vanity Fair in 2016, alongside Barack and Michelle Obama, Zadie
Smith. She won the Silverbird Special Achievement Award
jointly with Desmond Majekodunmi and Alistair Soyode).
In
2017, Chimamanda launched the ‘Wear Nigerian’ Project to promote
Nigerian fashion brands globally, this had her wearing clothes
designed mostly by Nigerians to prestigious events all around the
world. She also became the first Nigerian winner of the
Mary McCarthy Prize for her “thought-provoking novels and charismatic public
presence.”
That
same year, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions; an
open letter guiding her friend on how to raise a feminist was
published. The manifesto was listed among the best books of 2017 by
NPR Books and Audible and won ‘Le Grand Prix de l’héroïne
Madame Figaro’ for its French version the same
year. She bagged the Harper Bazaar’s Women of the Year
Award. Half of a Yellow Sun earned her the spot of first
Nigerian to win the Orange Prize award.
Thanks
to Purple Hibiscus, she became the first Nigerian winner of
the ‘One Maryland, One Book’ Programme, which was created by The
Maryland Humanities to unite diverse people through shared
experiences of reading the same book. She also won the ‘One Book, One
New York Program’, for Americanah, a citywide book club that gets
everyone in New York to read the same book simultaneously. Fortune
Magazine listed her alongside Pope Francis, Melinda
Gates, Ava Duvernay and others in its
‘50 Greatest World Leaders’.
‘First’
has been her tag and so in 2018, Chimamanda became the first African
to win the PEN Pinter Prize and also first African to speak at an Harvard
University Class Day. Barnes & Noble Writers for
Writers awarded her for dedication
towards her writing workshop — the Farafina Workshop (now known
as The Purple Hibiscus Trust). She became a recipient of the
Leadership Award during The Women’s Centre’s 32nd Annual Leadership Conference,
was presented with Humanitarian Award by Action Against Hunger
in her strong advocacy for gender equality and awarded Global
Hope Coalition Thought Leadership Award for being an “Everyday
Hero” shaping global conversations concerning feminism, race,
and North/South relations.
She
was also featured on the cover of Elle Magazine, India as “The Original
Feminist” in September 2018. Americanah got featured on PBS’s The
Great American Read; a list of America’s 100 most-loved
books, it was included in Barack Obama’s recommended summer
reading list and listed among the New York Times “15 remarkable books
by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st
century”.
She
delivered the Yale University Class Day speech becoming the first African
to do so. She received the Everett M. Rogers Award which is
given yearly to honour the late USC Annenberg professor was
given to her. She was named in New African’s list of ‘The 100 Most Influential
Africans’ and the fourth most influential African as well
as only woman named in the top 5 list. September 2019 had her
gracing more Magazine covers including the special issue of British Vogue where
the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle selected Adichie amongst 15 others as a
‘Force for Change’. In the special issue of National Geographic
Magazine Landmark Book titled WOMEN, Adichie was featured in the section
‘Portraits of Power’ alongside Oprah Winfrey, Melinda Gates and more.
On
September 15, her birthday, she became the first Nigerian to win
the Kassel Citizens ‘Prism of Reason’ award (which was presented
to her by the citizens of Kassel in Germany) for her vision of
humanistic diversity. That same September, it was announced that HBO Max,
a division of WarnerMedia Entertainment, is creating a straight-to-series order
for the television adaptation of Adichie’s most recent novel, Americanah. The
10-episode series will star Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, with the pilot
being written by screenwriter and actor Danai Gurira (who starred in the movie
Black Panther) — and will be co-produced by Lupita and Brad Pitt’s production
company Plan B.
In
November 2019, The UN Foundation awarded her with the Global Leadership Award,
making her the first Nigerian and youngest African to receive the prestigious
award, which had been won previously by world leaders like Barack Obama, the
late Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey. In December 2019,
Chimamanda hosted friend and Creative Director of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri in
Lagos in a series or impactful activities for Nigerian fashion designers and
creators. One of such activities included the ‘Wear Nigerian’
Fashion Show where some Nigerian designers like The Ladymaker, Mai Atafo,
Emmy Kasbit and more were invited to showcase their beautiful designs to the
delight of all.
Also
in December 2019, she hosted the 12th edition of the Purple Hibiscus
Creative Writing workshop – her annual creative writing workshop for
upcoming and aspiring writers – in Anambra state for the first
time (the previous editions were held in Lagos State). While
participants are mostly Nigerian, the workshop takes a continental stance as
others have come from Kenya, Botswana and other African countries.
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