By Henry Akubuiro
Award-winning Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, is set to receive her 16th honorary doctorate award on Sunday, April 28, 2022.
To be awarded by the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, the ceremony would be held at the main campus in Louvain-la-Neuve, 20 kilometers from Brussels.
The awarding institution was founded by Pope Martin V in 1425 and is one of the oldest Catholic universities in Europe and the biggest French speaking university in Belgium.
It has produced outstanding alumni, such as the mathematician Vitold Belevich and Queen Mathilde of Belgium.
The Rector of the University, Vincent Blondel, stated that the Academic Council considered Chimamanda’s work to be “remarkable in many ways and particularly inspiring for the university community.”
Adichie, a celebrated feminist, has written the novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists (2014).
Her most recent books include Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), Zikora (2020) and Notes on Grief (2021). In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant.