The writer’s work tells the story of a Nigerian woman who moves to the US to pursue a college education.
In 2008, her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the UK’s Orange
Prize and Purple Hibiscus was longlisted for the Booker Prize four years
earlier.
Other category winners for the US honour included Sheri Fink’s book about Hurricane Katrina.
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.
Frank Bidart won the poetry section for his collection Metaphysical
Dog, while Amy Wilentz was