Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author. She was born in 1977 to an Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria. She was raised in an academic setting; at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, “her father was a professor, and her mother was the first female Registrar” (“About.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). When Adichie came of age, she enrolled at the University of Nigeria, where she began pursuing a degree in medicine. Only a year later, Adichie changed her career path and immigrated to the United States at the age of 19.

Adichie attended Eastern Connecticut State University, where she earned degrees in communication and political science. Adichie also earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts in African history from Yale University. She also received fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University in 2011 and the MacArthur Foundation in 2008.

Adichie launched her career in 2003 with the publication of her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus. Originally published by Algonquin Books, Purple Hibiscus won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In 2006, her sophomore novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize.