The publishing industry was also influenced by Adichie’s style, says Ainehi Edoro, founder of literary blog Brittle Paper and associate professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Before her, African fiction often came packaged with a kind of ethnographic weight – expected to ‘explain’ Africa to a western audience,” she says. “But Adichie’s work wasn’t performing ‘Africanness’ for an outsider’s gaze; it was literary, intimate, contemporary. She helped shift expectations – both in publishing and among readers – so that the next wave of African writers didn’t have to over-explain, dilute or justify their stories.”