Yesterday Nigerian feminist writer Chimamanda Adichie was awarded the prestigious MacArthur fellowship, along with 24 other fellows. The fellowships are popularly known as “genius grants” and award fellows $100,000 a year for five years.
MacArthur foundation president Jonathan F. Fanton described this year’s winners as “people working on the very edge of discovery and people at the edge of a new synthesis,” according to the New York Times.
Adichie’s short story, The Thing Around Your Neck, appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of Ms. magazine. Her piece entitled “Hair” will be featured in the upcoming Fall 2008 issue.
