Chimamanda Adichie wins National Book Critics Award 2013

Chimamanda Adichie is the biggest name in Nigerian (if not African) literature right now. She is kinda like the Lupita Nyong’o of literature from this rock we live on and love so much. Her book Americanah was published last year and she has been racking up the nominations and wins for this one book. In fact I am starting to get worried that this is actually a blog about Chimamanda Adichie and not a snapshot of the whole African literature scene.

Well the Naija writer went home with yet another award; the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Awards last night. This was at a ceremony at the New School in New York for fiction for her book Americanah a book about a young Nigerian woman who immigrates to the United States to pursue a college education.

The National Book Critics Circle honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature. And by National, this means the US. This means that our Chimamanda has been able to be considered important to the US national critics scene. I hope this doesn’t mean that it means that she is considered a good person to be criticised by American critics.
There were other winners of awards in the evening. They included;
• Nonfiction prize – Sheri Fink for Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
• Autobiography award – Amy Wilentz for Farewell, Fred Voodoo.
• Biography award – Leo Damrosch for Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World.
• Poetry award – Frank Bidart for Metaphysical Dog.
• Criticism award – Franco Moretti for Distant Reading.

Congratulations Chimamanda.