Four women whose lives intersect: Chia is a travel writer searching for a sense of home. Zikora is a lawyer and single mother. Kadiatou works as a domestic helper for Chia and fights for justice after a sexual assault. Omelogor, Chia’s cousin, is a financial analyst in Lagos who dropped out of university in the U.S. and writes a blog about relationships and sexuality.

With Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of the most important literary voices of our time, presents a new novel. In it, she tells a story of love and loss, friendship and self-determination – and the courage to take one’s life into one’s own hands. Dream Count is “a powerful tale of solidarity among four women between Nigeria and the United States” (FAZ).

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the international literature festival berlin (11.–24.9.2025), the festival has secured Adichie for her only appearance in Berlin—one of just two in Germany.

Three years after delivering the keynote speech at the opening of the Humboldt Forum in 2021, in which she called for courage and responsibility in addressing colonial history, Adichie returns to this venue. She will present her new book, read selected passages, and speak about the four women in her novel – and the fifth woman: the author herself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the most influential voices in world literature. Her works have been translated into 55 languages. In 2013, she received the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Americanah. Her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007.

With her TED Talk "We Should All Be Feminists", the Nigerian writer firmly established feminism in pop culture. The text is available in German as "Mehr Feminismus! Ein Manifest und vier Stories" (FISCHER Taschenbuch). Her most recent German publications include "Liebe Ijeawele. Wie unsere Töchter selbstbestimmte Frauen werden" (2017, FISCHER Taschenbuch) and "Trauer ist das Glück, geliebt zu haben" (2021, S. FISCHER).

Adichie has received numerous awards, including the PEN Pinter Prize and the Everett M. Rogers Award in 2018. In 2019, she was honored with the Kassel Citizens’ Prize "Glas der Vernunft", and in 2020, she was awarded the International Hermann Hesse Prize for Purple Hibiscus.

Born in Nigeria in 1977, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie now divides her time between Lagos and the United States.

An event organized by the international literature festival berlin (ilb) in cooperation with the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, the American Academy in Berlin, and S. Fischer Verlag.

The conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will take place in English. Following the event, there will be an opportunity to purchase Dream Count and have it signed.

Further information:

- Price: 28 € regular / 14 € reduced

- Language: English

- Venue: Room 1