Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
GRANTEE
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is a Nigerian journalist and novelist based in Abuja and London. She is the first contemporary African writer to launch a global career while fully domiciled in her home country.
Her debut novel, I Do Not Come to You by Chance, won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Africa) and the 2010 Betty Trask First Book award. It was named by The Washington Post as one of the Best Books of the Year.
Her debut young adult novel, Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree, based on dozens of interviews with women and girls kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram, was published by HarperCollins in September 2018. Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree won the 2018 Raven Award for Excellence in Arts and Entertainment, was named as one of the American Library Association's Best Fiction for Young Adults, and was a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People 2019 selection.
Nwaubani's journalism focuses on underreported humanitarian issues. Her reports and essays have appeared in several publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Guardian.
She writes a monthly column for the BBC's Letter from Africa and also broadcasts on the Focus on Africa radio program. She was a location producer for the BBC/HBO documentary feature film Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped by Boko Haram and a super stringer for the Reuters Foundation.
Nwaubani was also a recipient of the 2019 Carter Journalism Institute's Reporting Award.