[Award] Chimamanda Adichie’s “Half of a Yellow Sun” Is ‘Best of the Best’ of Baileys Prize

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun has been named ‘Best of the Best’ of the winners of the second decade of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

This announcement came Monday, at a live event in the Piccadilly Theatre in London.

The ‘Best of the Best’category was chosen from the ten novels that have won the prize in the past decade. The chairs of the judging panels read from each of the ten prize-winning novels before the ‘Best of the Best’ announcement.

 Chimamanda commented; “I have a lot of respect for the books that have won in the past ten years and also for the books that have been shortlisted – I feel I am in very good company. To be selected as ‘Best of the Best’ of the past decade is such an honour. I’m very grateful and very happy.”

Half of a Yellow Sun won the Bailey’s Women’s Prize in 2007 (when it was still known as the Orange Prize).

Muriel Gray, Chair of Judges, said: “While it’s sometimes pompous to call a book ‘important’, it’s appropriate to say it of Half of a Yellow Sun. Chimamanda’s achievement makes Half of a Yellow Sun not just a worthy winner of this most special of prizes, but a benchmark for excellence in fiction writing.”

The BAILEYS Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most respected, most celebrated and most successful literary awards in the world. An annual award, it celebrates the very best full length fiction written by women throughout the world.  Through the initiatives and promotions set up by the WPFF, even appearing on the shortlist significantly boosts a novel’s sales and ensures an author’s work will be promoted in bookshops and libraries the world over.