Author Guide · Lisanne Swart
Books Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie built a career on the idea that fiction doesn’t have to shrink to hold politics. She debuted at twenty-six with a novel about a household ruled by religious violence, and thirteen years later people were quoting her TED talk in a Beyoncé song. Her range across eight books is real: three novels spanning fifty years of Nigerian history, a story collection built from pieces first published in The New Yorker and Granta, two short essays that became cultural shorthand, a grief memoir, and a fourth novel that took twelve years to arrive. Below is her complete bibliography, in order.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 books · 2003–2025 · Updated July 2026
Where to start
Her most acclaimed work
Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) — winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the novel that established her internationally.
If you want something shorter first
We Should All Be Feminists (2014) — under fifty pages, adapted from her TED talk, and the fastest way into her voice.
Purple Hibiscus
Adichie’s debut follows fifteen-year-old Kambili growing up in a wealthy but suffocating household ruled by her devout, violent father. It was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book.
Half of a Yellow SunStart here
Set during the Nigerian Civil War, the novel follows twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, Olanna’s revolutionary lover Odenigbo, and a young houseboy named Ugwu as Biafra’s brief attempt at independence collapses into famine and violence. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2007 and was adapted into a 2013 film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandiwe Newton.
The Thing Around Your Neck
A collection of twelve short stories moving between Nigeria and the United States, examining marriage, immigration, and the small negotiations of people caught between two countries. Several of the stories had already appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, and The O. Henry Prize Stories before the collection was published.
Americanah
Ifemelu leaves Nigeria for university in America and builds a life, and a blog, around what she learns there about race, while Obinze, the boyfriend she left behind, is refused a US visa after 9/11 and ends up an undocumented worker in London. The novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was named one of the ten best books of 2013 by The New York Times.
We Should All Be Feminists
Adapted from her 2012 TEDxEuston talk, this extended essay argues for a feminism grounded in specific, everyday costs rather than abstraction. Beyoncé sampled it on “***Flawless” the same year it was published, and Sweden distributed a copy to every sixteen-year-old in the country in 2015.
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Written as a letter to a friend who had just had a daughter, this short book lays out fifteen concrete suggestions for raising a feminist child, extending the argument of We Should All Be Feminists into the specifics of parenting.
Notes on Grief
Written after the sudden death of Adichie’s father in 2020, this extended essay traces the disorientation and physical weight of grief in real time. It began as a piece published in The New Yorker before being expanded into a standalone book.
Dream Count
Adichie’s fourth novel, and her first in twelve years, follows four Nigerian and Nigerian-American women navigating love, ambition, and the aftermath of a sexual assault case. Published in March 2025, it was her most anticipated release since Americanah.
Frequently asked questions about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s books
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