Posted on June 12, 2018 at 12:43 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been awarded the 2018 PEN Pinter prize.
Adichie's notable works include Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Orange Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book; Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of The New York Times Top Ten Best Books of 2013; and Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.
She is also known for her TED talks (including the 2012 talk We Should All Be Feminists that a started a worldwide conversation about feminism) as well as receiving a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
She was described by Antonia Fraser as “as a writer who embodies ‘those qualities of courage and outspokenness which Harold much admired,’” The Guardian reported.
Fraser, a noted biographer, is the widow of Harold Pinter, the Nobel Laureate for whom the prize is named.
Adichie will formally receive the prize on October 9. On that day, she will also announce the 2018 International Writer of Courage, whom she chooses for their activity in “defense of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty,” according to The Guardian.
The Pinter prize win places Adichie in the company of Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Tom Stoppard, among others.
Categories: Today in Books