Adichie to receive honorary degree from Duke University

Chimamanda Adichie, alongside five others, will receive honorary degrees at the Duke University, a private research institution in Durham, North Carolina, US.

The event, which will hold on May 13, is part of the school’s graduation ceremony.

This is not the first honorary degree to be received by the novelist. In 2017, she was a doctor of letters award degree from University of Edinburgh and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Science.

“Duke is proud to recognize the contributions that this distinguished group has made to society,” Vincent Price, the university president, said.

“They each have been bold leaders in their respective fields, and their work has enriched and improved our lives. I am delighted to have the honour of awarding their degrees, and I am certain that the graduating Class of 2018 will be inspired by their example.”

According to a statement on the university website, Adichie’s book ‘Americanah’ was selected as the first-year summer assignment for the graduating set.

“Adichie has been recognized as a voice of both contemporary African and global Anglophone fiction. She is the author of three novels – ‘Purple Hibiscus’ (2003), ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ (2006) and ‘Americanah’ (2013),” the statement read.

“Americanah’ won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was named one of The New York Times’s Ten Best Books of the Year. It was selected as the first-year summer reading the assignment for Duke’s Class of 2018.”

She is also the author of a short story collection, ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ and ‘Dear Ijeawale; A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions’, a series of letters about feminism and motherhood.