NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 19: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie attends the annual Make Equality Reality Gala hosted by Equality Now on November 19, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Equality Now)
Literary giant, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is many things to different people, but what you may not know of this Nigerian export to the world is the plethora of decorations and awards she has garnered in her walk of life.
Below, we serve you some of the things that make her special.
- She has graced Times most influential 100 people on Earth couple of times.
- Won world women prize for fiction 2007 .
- She is a McArthur fellowship member ( this is a group of world distinguish schoolers only for GENIUS ).
- Won America’s National book critics Award for fiction 2014.
- Won Pen Open book Award for fiction.( This is for world best writers competition)
- Won world best short Award for literature.
In 2002, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story “You in America”, and her story “That Harmattan Morning” was selected as a joint winner of the 2002 BBC World Service Short Story Awards. In 2003, she won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award).
In 2010 she was listed among the authors of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” Fiction Issue. In April 2014, she was named as one of 39 writers aged under 40[106] in the Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club project Africa39, celebrating Port Harcourt UNESCO World Book Capital 2014. In April 2017, it was announced that Adichie had been elected, as one of 228 new members to ube inducted on 7 October 2017,into the 237th class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; this was one of the highest honours for intellectuals in the United States.
Adichie holds 16 honorary doctorate degrees from universities including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Catholic University of Louvain. In 2016, she was conferred with an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Johns Hopkins University.In 2017, she was conferred an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane letters, honoris causa, by Haverford College and The University of Edinburgh.In 2018, she received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Amherst College.She received an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, from the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2019. On 20 May 2019, Ngozi Adichie received an honorary degree from Yale University .On 28 April 2022, she received her 16th honorary doctorate degree from the Catholic University of Louvain.
On 13 October 2022, she rejected an award that was to be given to her by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari: “The author did not accept the award and, as such, did not attend the ceremony. On 30 December 2022, Adichie was made the Odeluwa of Abba, a Nigerian chief, by the kingdom of Abba in her native Anambra State. She was the first woman to receive such an honour from the kingdom.
Today , she is the most influential Nigerian apart from Okonjo Iweala on the world stage . She dines with Presidents , top elites of all all strata and even Kings and Queens.
