Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been announced as the winner of Women’s Prize for Fiction ‘Winner of Winners’ for her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun.
This one-off award marks the culmination of the Prize’s year-long 25th anniversary celebrations. Thousands of readers embarked on a challenge to read all 25 previous winners of the Prize throughout 2020. They joined the Prize’s digital bookclub to share their thoughts, downloading newly created online reading guides and exclusive author interviews. Over 8,500 people joined in the public vote in September.
Half of a Yellow Sun was first published in 2006. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction (then the Orange Prize) in 2007. The novel is set in Nigeria during the Biafran War, and deals with issues like colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class, race and female empowerment – and how love can complicate all of these things. It was adapted into a film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton in the lead roles and was released worldwide in 2013.
Speaking of her win, Chimamanda said she was moved to be voted Winner of Winners. Adichie will be presented with a specially-commissioned silver edition of the Prize’s annual statuette, known as the ‘Bessie’, which was originally created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven as part of the gift of an anonymous donor.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction founder and director, novelist and playwright Kate Mosse said: ‘I am thrilled that Half of a Yellow Sun has won the silver Winner of Winners. Our aim has always been to promote and celebrate the classics of tomorrow today and to build a library of exceptional, diverse, outstanding international fiction written by women. The ‘Reading Women’ campaign has been the perfect way to introduce a new generation of readers to the brilliance of all of our twenty-five winners and to honour the phenomenal quality and range of women’s writing from all over the world. Congratulations to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and here’s to our next quarter century!’
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will talk further about her writing and being chosen for the ‘Winner of Winners’ award in an exclusive live online event hosted by Founder Director Kate Mosse and the Women’s Prize for Fiction on Sunday 6 December at 7pm GMT. Tickets are available via the Women’s Prize for Fiction’s website.
Waterstones and Adichie’s UK publisher 4th Estate have created an exclusive hardback special edition of Half of a Yellow Sun, available from Waterstones priced at £18.99, from Wednesday 25 November. The book will also be available to purchase as part of the online live event.
A big congratulations to Chimamanda Adichie!
#women’sprizeforfiction #Chimamandangoziadichie #halfofayellowsun
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