The Thing Around Your Neck

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a contemporary Nigerian author who was born in Enugu, Nigeria, in 1977. Her father was a professor at Nsukka University, and her mother was the registrar of the university. Adichie comes from an Igbo family, a Nigerian ethnic group. Born shortly after the Nigerian Civil War ended, Adichie grew up on the Nsukka campus with her family. After secondary school she studied medicine and pharmacology in Nigeria, where she edited a student paper. Leaving for the US at age 19 to study political science, she went on to complete a master’s degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University.

In 1997, she published a collection of poetry and later continued to publish her poetry and fiction. In 2003, Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus, was published. It tells the story of a 15-year-old Nigerian girl, Kambili, growing up in a Catholic household. Purple Hibiscus was praised by critics and brought attention to Adichie as an author. Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, which dealt with the Nigerian Civil War, was published in 2006. The Thing Around Your Neck, published in 2009, was her third book. Adichie’s next novel, Americanah, which deals with a Nigerian immigrant’s experience of race in America, was published in 2013. Adichie has continued to publish both fiction and non-fiction writing in publications such as The New Yorker. She has been recognized as a great Nigerian intellectual and has received various grants and honorary degrees for her literary contributions, including a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives in both the US and Nigeria.