Globally acclaimed Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has revealed that, despite receiving as many as 25 rejections for her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, she never considered giving up on writing.
Adichie made the disclosure during an exclusive interview on Channels Television’s Amazing Africans, which aired on Sunday, 3 August 2025. She emphasised that she would have continued writing even if she had never been published.
According to her, writing is a divine gift, something she considers spiritual and believes to be her primary purpose on earth.
‘The thought of quitting writing is never an option for me because writing is my vocation. Writing is really what I believe I am here to do, it’s a bit spiritual.
‘I feel that is a gift that I am given and so even if I hadn’t been published I will still be writing today. So, the idea of giving up writing was never an option. But it (the rejection) was demoralising’, Chimamanda said.
The renowned writer was the headline speaker at the inaugural grand finale of the Things Fall Apart Festival held in Enugu in July, where she first shared the story of receiving 25 rejections for Purple Hibiscus.
In the interview, Adichie reflected on how those rejections unfolded and how the experience made her more grounded and practical in navigating her writing career moving forward.
She said, ‘I started out, so I have written this novel and I was at the time a college student in the US. I was living in my sister’s house, I was helping take care of my nephew as a full time student and I was writing my novel. And when I was done writing the novel, I felt this novel is good, I am sure somebody will publish it very quickly.
‘So, I started sending it out. Usually, at the time, and this was before email became a thing, you send it out physically and included a self-addressed envelope. I had read all the books about how to get published.
‘You were advised to send out in batches of four or five, just to increase your chances. Then you’d go to this book called The Writer’s Marketplace, and you’d look at different publishers and agents who were interested in such things as literary fiction—or what, at the time in the US, was called ethnic fiction.
‘So, I made a list of those I started sending out, and with my first batch, I felt very confident. I thought, ‘I’m sure four people will say yes, it’s not even five.’ So when I got the first five rejections, I was shocked. I was genuinely shocked. But I think it was very good for me, because it made me a lot more practical and a lot less overconfident about what publishing meant in America’.
After Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie went on to publish other globally acclaimed novels such as Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, and her latest, Dream Count.
She has also won top literary awards such as the Orange Prize for Fiction (2007) for Half of a Yellow Sun, the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for Americanah, and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (2005) for Purple Hibiscus.
In recognition of her overall contribution to literature, Adichie was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship (often called the ‘Genius Grant’) in 2008 and was also elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.
