UK: Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the youngest woman to receive the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction with her second novel, 'Half of a Yellow Sun'

Record ID: 454504

  • Title: UK: Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the youngest woman to receive the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction with her second novel, 'Half of a Yellow Sun'
  • Date: 9th June 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 6, 2007) (MEDIALINK VNR) VARIOUS OF GUESTS AT ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL AFTER THE AWARD (SOUNDBITE) (English) MURIEL GRAY, CHAIR OF JUDGES, SAYING: "The winning book we really felt was an astonishing technical achievement, dealing with an epic, huge subject, but keeping it personal. A real page turner. And something that could've been an incredible turn off, if it had been worthy and heavyweight, or indeed over-emotional, sentimental and overly horrific. But the incredible even-handed tone and the excitement being all character driven we thought was a piece of brilliance. I mean you just can't stop reading this book once you pick it up." PEOPLE
  • Embargoed: 24th June 2007 13:00
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  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVA7AOEA1POGU16P6EGCLMIPAUFX
  • Story Text: Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie landed the Orange Prize on Wednesday (June 6) one of the literary world's top awards given to women writers, for a novel set in the 1960's Biafran civil war.
    "Half of a Yellow Sun" had been hot favourite with bookmakers to land the 30,000 pound ($60,000) prize for the writer, shortlisted for the Orange in 2004 for her debut novel "The Purple Hibiscus".
    The book tells the story of three characters -- a poor houseboy, a glamorous woman and a shy Englishman -- who are caught up in the conflict and have to run for their lives.
    Adichie, who is the youngest and the first African woman to receive the prize, said winning the award was important to her as an African woman.
    "I think being the youngest doesn't matter, it doesn't really mean anything to me but being the first African does matter to me because I like to feel that people like me who will know about this and then think they too can. So, in that case, that's sort of nice," Adichie told Reuters.
    Adichie said she believed African literature was gaining more recognition in the West and was time African stories be told by African themselves.
    "I think that publishers in the West are taking more interest in Africa. Nigerian writers and African writers have been writing for a long time and I think in some ways it's a good thing now that people are starting to realise that African stories are best told by Africans themselves. Because I think we have had a long history of African stories being told by non-Africans and non-Africans being seen as the definitive voices on Africa. And, I like that it's changing, there's still a long way to go but we're getting somewhere I think," she said.
    The Orange, set up in 1996, had a distinctly international flavour in 2007 with authors also shortlisted from Britain, China, India and the United States for the prize, awarded to the best book written in English by a woman over the past 12 months.
    Broadcaster Muriel Gray, who chaired the judging panel for the Orange award, said Adichie's book was a brilliant piece of literature.
    "The winning book we really felt was an astonishing technical achievement, dealing with an epic, huge subject, but keeping it personal. A real page turner. And something that could've been an incredible turn off, if it had been worthy and heavyweight, or indeed over-emotional, sentimental and overly horrific. But the incredible even-handed tone and the excitement being all character driven we thought was a piece of brilliance. I mean you just can't stop reading this book once you pick it up," she said.
    Second favourite -- and also making her second appearance on the shortlist -- had been Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. author Anne Tyler for "Digging to America" which probes cultural differences in American society.
    Another hotly fancied contender was Indian novelist Kiran Desai who last year became the youngest winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for "The Inheritance of Loss" about an embittered judge seeking a quiet retirement in the
    Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy and Lionel Shriver rank as three of the most prominent past winners of the prize which consistently stokes controversy among literary critics and authors.
    The late novelist Kingsley Amis once said he would not care to win it if he were a woman. Female author A.S. Byatt said the prize "ghettoised" women.
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