Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been presented with the Mary McCarthy Award for her brilliantly written novels and her captivating public persona. She became the first Nigerian to receive the prestigious award at an event that held at Bard College, New York recently. The McCarthy award according is named after famous novelist Mary McCarthy who taught at Bard for a year, is given in acknowledgement of engagement in the public sphere by an intellectual, artist, or writer. Some other notable recipients of the award are Margaret Atwood (the author of The Handmaid’s Tale), Zadie Smith, Mona Simpson, and Susan Sontag. Her most recent book, Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions was published in March this year.