The Catholic University of Louvain has announced that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would receive an honorary doctorate degree on April 22, according to The Guardian. This will be the distinguished Nigerian author’s 16th honorary doctorate.
The Catholic University of Louvain is one of Europe’s oldest Catholic universities, located in Belgium. In 1425, Pope Martin V established the educational school. Belgium’s Queen Mathilde and mathematician Vitold Belevitch are both alumni of the university, which is also Belgium’s largest French-speaking university.
The university’s rector, Vincent Blondel, explained why the Academic Council chose to recognize Adichie, saying that her work is “exceptional in many aspects and particularly motivating for our university community.”
Blondel continued, “Values that we seek to convey to our students, professors, researchers, and the entire university community” are exemplified by the 44-year-old.
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“The topic for the new academic year at the institution is ‘The Fragility of Truth.’ “This issue is properly illustrated by Adichie’s work, which is divided between fiction and the reality of fighting against all types of tyranny,” Blondel added.
Other notable universities have bestowed honorary degrees on Adichie, including Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, Yale University, Georgetown University, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Adichie, who was born on September 15, 1977, to parents who worked at a university, began writing as soon as she could spell. It’s no wonder, then, that she dropped out of a medical program to seek a degree in communications and political science. In 1997, she published Decisions, a collection of poems, and in 1998, she wrote For the Love of Biafra, a drama.
Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, The Thing Around Your Neck, We Should All Be Feminists, and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions were among the books she published.
She has won numerous honors as a writer, including the MacArthur Genius Grant, the Orange Prize, the Booker Prize, and the PEN Pinter Prize. She has also been named one of Africa’s most prominent women and authors by many organizations.
