[center]Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Wins $500,000.00 Genius Grant[/center]

Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, author of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, winner of the Orange Prize, is one of 25 recipients of the 2008 MacArthur Fellowship.

Also known as the “genius grant”, this annual award given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to a few select citizens or residents of the USA is worth $500 000 support over five years with no strings attached.

Recipients of any age and working in any field, who “show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work” are nominated anonymously. Recipients are offered the opportunity to accelerate their current activities or take their work in new directions.

“The MacArthur Fellows Program celebrates extraordinarily creative individuals who inspire new heights in human achievement,” said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton. “With their boldness, courage, and uncommon energy, this new group of Fellows, men and women of all ages in diverse fields, exemplifies the boundless nature of the human mind and spirit.”

Chimamanda Adichie is a young writer who illuminates the complexities of human experience in works inspired by events in her native Nigeria. Adichie explores the intersection of the personal and the public by placing the intimate details of the lives of her characters within the larger social and political forces in contemporary Nigeria.

Chimamanda Adichie is a young writer who illuminates the complexities of human experience in works inspired by events in her native Nigeria. Adichie explores the intersection of the personal and the public by placing the intimate details of the lives of her characters within the larger social and political forces in contemporary Nigeria. Dividing her time over the last decade between the United States and Nigeria, she is widely appreciated for her stark yet balanced depiction of events in the post-colonial era. In her most recent novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), Adichie unflinchingly portrays the horror and destruction of the civil war following the establishment of the Republic of Biafra. Using multiple narrative voices, a precise movement back and forth in time, and prose that is at once witty and empathetic, she immerses the reader in the psyches of her characters, whose loyalties to each other and their ideals are tested as their world gradually falls apart. In humanizing the Biafran tragedy, Adichie’s novel has enriched conversation about the war within Nigeria while also offering insight into the circumstances that lead to ethnic conflict. A writer of great promise, Adichie’s powerful rendering of the Nigerian experience is enlightening audiences both in her homeland and around the world.

[culled from: http://news.book.co.za/blog/2008/09/23/african-novelist-wins-500-000-genius-grant/#more-697 ; and from  http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4536885/ ]


This is a real incentive to work hard and excel in your field. . . lucky bugger.

Wow. One hundred Thousand Dollars per year for the next five years and she can do sweet F.A. if she so chooses. ^{Abeg one of those nominators should quickly nominate me. I can put all that money to good use.} 

CONGRATS Ms. Adichie

Na wah. This girl is slowly getting there.

The girl is going places, more grease to her elbows.

Naija women representing.

Still Dreaming About What i Would Use HAlf A Million Dollars to Do.

I think she'll receive that in a period of 5 years. That's 100k/yr and when you take out the taxes, it may come down to $70K per year.

70k? that's 30 percent, I am thinking it would be around 60-65k.

70k? that's 30 percent, I am thinking it would be around 60-65k

Well, I forgot the UK has a higher tax bracket than the US.

Wow! Impressive!!

[size=4pt]Where can I buy boldness?[/size]

DeepZone:

I think she'll receive that in a period of 5 years. That's 100k/yr and when you take out the taxes, it may come down to $70K per year.

Ndipe:

70k? that's 30 percent, I am thinking it would be around 60-65k.

And this is why I hate the US so very much. The greedy system of taxing citizens. If she was a UK citizen/resident and if in those 5 years that she was to be paid $100,000 per year, she was resident in another country (^{Non-EU I think} for the whole year -bar a number of days; I am unsure exactly how many days), the UK government would not take a penny in tax. On the other hand, the US taxes its citizens to the ground whether or not they are resident in the US (the greedy bastards). That is why the taxman is one of the most hated person in the US. In the UK, people do not feel so bitter against taxmen even though the tax paid here is ultimately higher than the US. Don't get me wrong o, no one likes anybody deducting from their wages (so they don't like being taxed), but people do not generally have an ill/bitter feeling towards tax workers like they are out to get them as they do in the US.

She's really talented. I'm so happy for her.

And this is why I hate the US so very much. The greedy system of taxing citizens. If she was a UK citizen/resident and if in those 5 years that she was to be paid $100,000 per year, she was resident in another country (Non-EU I think for the whole year -bar a number of days; I am unsure exactly how many days), the UK government would not take a penny in tax. On the other hand, the US taxes its citizens to the ground whether or not they are resident in the US (the greedy bastards). That is why the taxman is one of the most hated person in the US. In the UK, people do not feel so bitter against taxmen even though the tax paid here is ultimately higher than the US. Don't get me wrong o, no one likes anybody deducting from their wages (so they don't like being taxed), but people do not generally have an ill/bitter feeling towards tax workers like they are out to get them as they do in the US.

What d hell are you saying? How many US citizens are resident outside the country? It's like making a big deal out of the welfare of Nigerians living outside the country before the ones living within the country. The US can even tax it's citizens living in hell, who cares as long as the tax bracket for those living and working in the US remain the lowest in western nations. Imagine you comparing the US with a welfare state like England.

Why not put a poll and see what people will prefer, reducing the tax bracket for citizens or increasing it by multiple percents while removing it for non residents?