One of the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s one-year-old twin sons has died after a brief illness.

“We’re deeply saddened to confirm the passing of one of Ms Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Dr Ivara Esege’s twin boys, Nkanu Nnamdi, who passed on Wednesday,” read a statement made by Adichie’s communications team.

“The family is devastated by this profound loss, and we request that their privacy be respected during this incredibly difficult time,” continued the statement, signed by Omawumi Ogbe of GLG Communications. “We ask for your grace and prayers as they mourn in private.”

“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 married in 2009. Adichie had her first child, a daughter, in 2016. In 2024, her twin boys were born via surrogate.

Adichie has become one of the most celebrated modern novelists for works exploring love, conflict, identity, feminism and colonialism among other themes. Her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, was longlisted for the Booker prize in 2004. Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun – set during the Biafran war – won the Women’s prize for fiction in 2007, and was named the “winner of winners” from 25 recipients in 2020. Her 2013 novel Americanah won the National Book Critics Circle award. Her most recent novel, Dream Count, was published last year and longlisted for the Women’s prize.

She is also the author of the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck as well as the nonfiction titles We Should All Be Feminists; Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions; and Notes on Grief, which she wrote following the death of her father in 2020. Her mother died months later, in 2021.