Nigerian · b. 1977
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the 2007 Orange Prize for "Half of a Yellow Sun," a novel about the Nigerian civil war told through three characters caught up in Biafra's brief, doomed existence. The Nigerian author's debut "Purple Hibiscus" announced a major talent; "Americanah" cemented her status as one of the most important writers of her generation. Adichie's TED talk "The Danger of a Single Story" has been viewed millions of times. Her fiction insists on complexity.