The Headstrong Historian

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author, born in Enugu, Nigeria, on September 15, 1977, and raised in the university town of Nsukka, where her parents worked as educators. Adichie received a bachelor’s degree in communication and political science from Eastern Connecticut State University in the United States, a master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and a master’s degree in African studies from Yale University.

Her literary career began in 2003 with the publication of her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. She went on to publish several other award-winning novels, including Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, as well as numerous essays, short stories, speeches, and TED talks. Other accolades include a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant and the PEN Pinter Prize. Her 2012 TED talk, “We Should All Be Feminists,” went viral, extending her reputation beyond the literary world. The speech was sampled in Beyoncé’s 2013 song “Flawless.”

Adichie’s work often explores themes of identity, race, gender, culture, and the politics of power, particularly in the context of postcolonial Africa, such as in Purple Hibiscus, and the African diaspora, such as in Americanah. In her collection of short stories, The Thing Around Her Neck—which includes “The Headstrong Historian”—Adichie focuses on questions that relate to the experience of being African, Nigerian, and/or Black in an increasingly globalized world, one that would see a person’s culture compromised for conformity.