European Catholic Varsity Honours Chimamanda Adichie
The Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, has conferred an honorary degree on award-winning Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie at their main campus on Friday.
The institution, which is one of the world’s oldest Catholic universities, disclosed this in a statement.
The Rector of the University, Vincent Blondel, said Adichie “develops a discourse on gender equality rooted in singular experience and is universal in scope.”
“She focuses on the experience of differences and makes us feel the fragility of what we sometimes hold to be true without having questioned it,” he added.
Professor of English Literature at the UCL, Daria Tunica, who described Adichie as one of her generation’s most gifted writer said she was very frank in her views and in her writings.
“Adiche’s work is filled with love and warmth, so it shows us our good sides, but also confronts us with our darker sides”, she added.
In her acceptance speech, Adichie appreciated the school and the management for the award.
Speaking on the theme of the ceremony, “The Fragility of Truth” she said, “There is mounting disinformation all over the world with severe consequences for all of us, and today it is easy to dress up a lie so nicely that it starts to take on the glow of the truth. It is time for us to seek truth and to insist on measures that make it possible for truth to prevail”.
This latest achievement is Adichie’s 16th honorary degree award, as she has also received the same from some of the world’s notable universities, including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Georgetown University, and Johns Hopkins University.