Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977 and is the author of two novels, Purple Hibiscus (2003), which was shortlisted for the Orange Fiction Prize and awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (2005), and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006).  Ms. Adichie currently divides her time between Nigeria and the U.S.  She was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University in 2005 – 2006, and is now pursuing graduate work in the African Studies program at Yale University.