One of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s toddler twins has died, her family has said.
An official statement said that 21-month-old boy Nkanu Nnamdi, whom the award-winning novelist shared with her husband Dr Ivara Esege, died on Wednesday (7 January) after a brief illness.
The comment issued on behalf of the family by Omawumi Ogbe said they were “devastated by this profound loss” and thanked well-wishers while also asking for privacy and prayers.
It concluded: “No further statements will be made, and we thank the public and the media for respecting their need for seclusion during this period of immense grief.”
Adichie and Esege were married in 2009. Their first child, a daughter, was born in 2016. Their twin boys were born via surrogate in 2024.
Regarded as one of the finest writers of her generation, Adichie’s work frequently explores themes of love, identity, colonialism, immigration and womanhood.
Her first book, the novel Purple Hibiscus, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004. Among her other most notable works are Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2007, and her 2013 novel Americanah, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Adichie was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2015. Her most recent novel, Dream Count, was published last year to strong critical praise.
She also publishes non-fiction, such as the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists and Notes on Grief, the latter written following the death of her father in 2020. Her We Should All Be Feminists TED Talk was also sampled in Beyoncé’s 2013 song “Flawless”.
In 2022, she gave a BBC lecture on freedom of speech in which she argued that young people were growing up “afraid to ask questions” out of fear of asking “the wrong questions”.
This climate could lead to “the death of curiosity, the death of learning and the death of creativity”, she warned.
“No human endeavour requires freedom as much as creativity does.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, she explained why she chose to keep the birth of her first child private: “There’s a part of me that resents the way that women are expected to perform parenthood in a way that men are not,” she said.
“I just think it’s a very personal, private thing. I think often that women are judged too harshly on choices they make, choices about motherhood, choices about pregnancy... and I think they shouldn’t be.”
Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, is among those to have expressed his condolences to Adichie and her family following the news of her son’s death.
With a deep sense of grief, I condole with Ms Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie @ChimamandaReal, her husband, Dr Ivara Esege, and the entire family on the passing of their son, Nkanu Nnamdi.
— Bola Ahmed Tinubu (@officialABAT) January 8, 2026
As a parent myself who has suffered the loss of a loved one, no grief is as devastating as…
In a statement shared to X, he said “no grief is as devastating as losing a child”, stating that he too has suffered that loss and that he empathised with the family.
“Ms Adichie is a literary icon who has brought joy and light to many homes globally, and I pray she and her family find strength in the Almighty in this trying hour,” he said. “My prayers are with the family.”
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