Chimamanda Adichie’s relatively young age of 44 might prevent her from adding the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature to her chest of honours, Swedish literary critic, Jonas Thente has said.
Speaking ahead of today’s (Thursday) announcement of the winner by the Swedish Academy, Thente said he wants Adichie to win the prize but fears that she is “probably too young.”
Renowned poet, Rudyard Kipling, was the youngest writer to receive the prize aged 41 in 1907.
Winners of the last four editions are Louise Gluck (2020), Peter Handke (2019), Olga Tokarczuk (2018) and Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017.
Should Adichie, winner of honours including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, 2009 International Nonino Prize, Mary McCarthy Award, f ‘Le Grand Prix de l’héroïne Madame Figaro’ 2017, for the French translation of Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions and Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner of Winners’ (25 years), for Half of a Yellow Sun, win, she would be the fifth African winner.
The previous African winners are Professor Wole Soyinka, Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz and Nadine Gordimer and South Africa’s J.M. Coetzee.
Though Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o is regularly speculated to win the prize, he has yet to win. However, he might still emerge victorious this time around.
