Revered novelist, Chimamanda Adichie has been crowned the Women’s Prize for Fiction ‘Winner of Winners’ for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun.
Adichie claimed this new award thirteen years after she won the Women’s prize for her novel that documented the Biafran war.
The one-off public vote, intended to celebrate 25 years of the prize, saw Adichie’s novel come top of a line-up that also included Zadie Smith, the late Andrea Levy, Lionel Shriver, Rose Tremain, and Maggie O’Farrell.
More than 8,500 people joined in the public vote from September, ahead of which thousands of readers were challenged in 2020 to read all 25 previous winners of the prize and to share their thoughts as part of the prize’s digital book club.
The accolade however came in addition to Adichie’s ‘Best of the Best‘ award win five years ago, when she was selected from the past decade’s winners.
Expressing her excitement after becoming the winner, Adichie stated, “I’m especially moved to be voted Winner of Winners because this is the prize that first brought a wide readership to my work and has also introduced me to the work of many talented writers.”
Half of a Yellow Sun originally won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2007, when it was then known as the Orange Prize. Set in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the novel is about the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class, race and female empowerment.