Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977. She is the author of the novels
Purple Hibiscus (2003) and
Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and she has recently published a collection of short stories titled
The Thing around Your Neck (2009).
She has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007) and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2008).