Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins the Best of the Best

We’re delighted to announce that Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been named the ‘Best of the Best’ of the winners of the second decade of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, as chosen by the Chairs of judges of the past ten years.

Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2007 and as ‘Best of the Best’ of the second decade of winners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will receive a special-edition Bessie statuette, cast in manganese bronze.

Adichie follows in the footsteps of Andrea Levy who was named winner of ‘Best of the Best’ of the Prize’s first decade for her novel Small Island, which won the Women’s Prize in 2004.

Watch Chimananda’s acceptance speech below:

Muriel Gray, Chair of Judges in 2007, the year Half of a Yellow Sun originally won the Prize said: “While it’s sometimes pompous to call a book ‘important’, it’s appropriate to say it of Half of a Yellow Sun.” She continued, “For an author, so young at the time of writing, to have been able to tell a tale of such enormous scale in terms of human suffering and the consequences of hatred and division, whilst also gripping the reader with wholly convincing characters and spell binding plot, is an astonishing feat.  Chimamanda’s achievement makes Half of a Yellow Sun not just a worthy winner of this most special of prizes, but a benchmark for excellence in fiction writing.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into thirty languages. She is the author of three novels; Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction; Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and Americanah which was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2014.

Head to our Twitter and Facebook pages for exclusive updates and competitions, including chances to win copies of Half of a Yellow Sun and exclusive Q&A’s with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.