NIGERIAN writer Chimamanda Adichie has expressed excitement at being a 2021 recipient of the North Star Award bestowed by the Hurston/Wright Foundation at the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Adichie described the recognition for her work in contemporary African literature as “utterly spirit-lifting”.

She wrote: “To be honoured as a @nypl ‘Library Lion,’ to join a tradition of this lionized institution, and in such excellent company. Utterly spirit-lifting.

“What a gift to join the long line of accomplished Black writers who have received the North Star Award. Thank you, @hurstonwrightfoundation, for supporting me from the very beginning when I was an unknown young writer…”

The North Star Award, the foundation’s highest honour, pays homage to the beacon that guided enslaved Africans to freedom and recipients of the award are individuals whose writing careers represent brilliant accomplishment, as well as those whose service to the writing community inspires others.

Adichie is the author of award-winning and best-selling novels, including Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun; the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck; and the essays “We Should All Be Feminists” and “Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.”

She is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Two other Nigerian writers – Tola Rotimi Abraham and Ben Okri, were nominated in the Debut Novel and Fiction Categories respectively.