Novelist Chimamanda Adichie on the 'Magic and Craft of Fiction'

Phillips Academy welcomes award-winning writer on Friday, April 20

April 05, 2012 —Phillips Academy’s Department of English is pleased to present an evening with novelist Chimamanda Adichie on Friday, April 20 at 7 p.m. in Kemper Auditorium on the Phillips Academy campus. This event is free and open to the public. Adichie's talk, titled "The Magic and Craft of Fiction," will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.

The author of the award-winning novels “Half of a Yellow Sun” and “Purple Hibiscus,” Adichie has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication in Nigeria about the Biafran war. In her writing, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class, or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

Adichie’s newest book, “The Thing Around Your Neck,” was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in Africa. It is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with corruption in their home country and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.

Adichie is the recipient of a 2008 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. “The New Yorker” named her one of the 20 most important fiction writers today under the age of 40.

This event is generously funded by the Abbot Academy Association, the Academy’s African Student Union and the Department of English.