Media & Arts

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Grew up in Chinua Achebe's former campus house; left medical school at 19 to write.

Born: 1977 · Enugu, Nigeria
Roots: Igbo Nigerian; emigrated to the US at 19
Family: Middle class; Her father was Nigeria's first professor of statistics, her mother the University of Nigeria's first female registrar; both families lost their fathers in the Biafran war.
Education: Medicine at Nsukka (left) → Eastern Connecticut → MFA, Johns Hopkins
Started with: A campus childhood; Raised on the University of Nigeria campus, in a house once occupied by Chinua Achebe.
Affiliations & societies: None documented.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1997 · age 19
Leaves medicine for America
Abandons the expected path after a year and a half; studies communications on scholarship.
2003 · age 26
Purple Hibiscus
Written while still a student; wins the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
2006 · age 29
Half of a Yellow Sun
The Biafran war novel drawn from both grandfathers' deaths; the Orange Prize follows.
2008 · age 31
MacArthur Fellowship
2009 · age 32
"The danger of a single story"
The TED talk becomes one of the most-viewed ever.
2013 · age 36
Americanah — and a Beyoncé sample
Her "We Should All Be Feminists" talk appears on Flawless the same year.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.