Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s memoir, ‘Notes on Grief’ won this year’s Indie Book Award for the best non-fiction book.
The winners of the 2023 Indie Book Awards were announced on June 23, the penultimate day of the Independent Bookshop Week which started on June 17 and ended on June 24.
We’re excited to reveal the winners of this year’s #IndieBookAwards
🌟 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
🌟 Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
🌟 Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A.F. Steadman
🌟 The Boy with Flowers in His Hair by Jarvis#IndieBookshopWeek pic.twitter.com/2ral7oNaEn
— Books Are My Bag (@booksaremybag) June 23, 2023
‘Demon Copperhead’ by Barbara Kingsolver won the fiction prize; ‘Skandar and the Unicorn Thief’ by A.F. Steadman won the children’s fiction award and ‘Boy with Flowers in His Hair’ by Jarvis won the picture book prize.
Notes On Grief, a meditation on the loss of Adichie’s father, was published in 2021 following the death of her father, James Nwoye Adichie.
Mel Griffin, chair of the adult categories judging panel, said it was a unanimous decision by the judges to award Adichie the non-fiction prize.
Griffin said, “It was a privilege to chair the 2023 Indie Book Awards, and the whole panel agreed that the shortlists were particularly strong this year, making the decision-making process challenging.
However, in the end, we unanimously selected Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as the non-fiction winner. This utterly beautiful essay says so much in very few pages, and we found it extraordinarily powerful.
“Although it focuses on one individual’s experience of grief, we felt that it would speak to many people, transcending culture and circumstances, with one judge describing the reading experience as ‘cathartic.'”
Commenting on the award, Adichie wrote on her Facebook page: “Independent bookshops are wonderful places, run by people who truly love books, who think that reading and literacy really matter. I am especially thrilled to have won this award.”
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