Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s family has confirmed that one of her toddler twins has passed away.
According to an official family statement, 21-month-old Nkanu Nnamdi, the son of the novelist and her husband Dr Ivara Esege, died on Wednesday after a short illness.
The statement, shared by Omawumi Ogbe on behalf of the family, said they were “devastated by this profound loss.” The family thanked those who have offered support and asked for privacy and prayers.
Adichie, an award-winning writer based in the US, is known for books like Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah. Her 2012 TED Talk and essay We Should All Be Feminists was also featured in Beyoncé’s 2013 song Flawless.
She is a leading voice in postcolonial feminist literature, and her writing often explores gender and immigration.
In 2015, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people.
Adichie, who is 48, had her first child, a daughter, in 2016. Her twin sons were born through surrogacy in 2024.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu also offered his condolences, saying, “no grief is as devastating as losing a child.”
“I empathise with the family at this difficult time,” he said in a statement on X.
In 2020, her 2006 novel Half of a Yellow Sun was voted the best book to have won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in its 25-year history.
Last year, during the release of her novel Dream Count, she told the BBC that she wants her books to be read in Africa.
She also shared that the writer’s block she faced while pregnant with her first child was “terrifying.””It’s a really frightening place to be, because writing is the thing that gives me meaning,” the acclaimed author told Emma Barnett.
In a 2022 BBC lecture on freedom of speech, she said that young people are growing up “afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions.”
She warned that this climate could lead to “the death of curiosity, the death of learning and the death of creativity,” during one of the BBC’s annual Reith lectures.
“No human endeavour requires freedom as much as creativity does,” she added.
