Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Born into an Igbo family in Enugu in 1977, Adichie started studying medicine at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka before leaving at 19 for the United States, where she studied at Drexel, Eastern Connecticut State, Johns Hopkins, and Yale. She began writing at university - first a poetry collection in 1997, then a play in 1998 - and her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, brought early success. Many of her novels are set in Nsukka, where she grew up, and her style juxtaposes Western and African influences rooted in Igbo culture, exploring religion, immigration, gender, and identity. Her TED Talks, including "The Danger of a Single Story" in 2009 and "We Should All Be Feminists" in 2012, reached far beyond literary circles - the latter sampled by Beyoncé and featured on Dior shirts in 2016. A MacArthur Fellow in 2008 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017, she has become a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature, cited Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta as inspirations, and continued speaking at commencements from Williams to Harvard.