Americanah wins the US National Critics Book Prize for Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie

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Her novel Americanah tells the story of a Nigerian woman who moves to the US to pursue a college education. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie herself, moved to the US at the age of 19 to study. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, she said her book drew on her own experiences as an African living in the US, particularly with African Americans. "I don't know race in the way an African American knows race… Sometimes it takes an outsider to see something about your own reality that you don't," she said. Her account of the patients, staff and families who took shelter in New Orleans' Memorial Hospital during the devastating storm took the non-fiction prize. The novel was also named as one of the New York Times' top 10 books of 2013. The National Critics Book price was first awarded in 1974 and is open to writers of all nationalities whose work has been published in the US. Big congrats to her.