Global Women and their Impact: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
/Every woman can make a difference, and we all do, in our very own way. We have an impact on our family, our children, friends and coworkers. And they influence us - how much have we learned from our mothers, grandmothers, siblings and best friends, even if we sometimes don’t want to admit it?
In our new series “Global Women and their Impact” we want to introduce women from different countries and show how they have influenced society, the entrepreneurship and business world and their industry.
Africa: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
If her name doesn't immediately ring a bell, her books certainly will. She is the author of several fantastic books, among them "Americanah" or "We should all be feminists". Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977 and grew up on the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where her father was a professor and her mother was the first female Registrar. She started her studies in Nigeria and at the age of 19 she moved to the US, where she graduated summa cum lauda from Eastern Connecticut State University with a degree in Communication and Political Science. Additionally, she also had a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and a Master of Arts degree in African History.
She wrote her first novel in 2002, “Purple Hibiscus”, and a few years later “Half of a Yellow Sun”. Both novels won her her first writer’s prizes. In 2013, she won the US National Book Critics Circle Award for her novel “Americanah” and it was named one of The New York Times Top Ten Best Books of 2013.
Besides the remarkable books she has written, she has also delivered two inspiring TED talks: “The Danger of a single story” (2009) and “We should all be feminists” (2012). The first talk has become one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time, the second is one of the author’s favorites and has sparked a worldwide conversation on feminism.
“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.” ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists
In the following years, she published the book “We should all be feminists”, based on her TED Talk, “Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions” and her most recent work “Notes on Grief”, an essay on the loss of her father. Find an overview of all her books on Goodreads.
Adichie has a tremendous impact on today’s world and in 2015 she was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and 2017, Fortune Magazine named her one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.
Global Women of Impact is a blog series launched in March 2022 to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. It features influential women around the globe and how they each made a difference in their field. Written by Nina Bader, Diversity & Inclusion Facilitator and Martha Fallon, Social Media Coordinator, Young Women in Business Vancouver.