For more than a decade, the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has coached and mentored African writers through her annual creative writing workshop.
Held in Lagos and Awka in Nigeria, the program has more than 200 graduates, including rising stars like Ayobami Adebayo, whose debut novel “Stay With Me” was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, and Jowhor Ile, the first Nigerian winner of the Etisalat Prize for Literature.
The workshops, with just 20 students out of thousands of applicants, are intimate and for some graduates, career-defining, leading to book deals, prizes and residencies. “We become, even if only briefly, a family,” Adichie has said of the program.