Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Books in Order

If you want sharp social satire: I Do Not Come to You by Chance
If you prefer a YA novel rooted in real events: Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree
If you want the best sense of her range: I Do Not Come to You by Chance → Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and grew up in Umuahia in the country's southeast. She has written about a childhood shaped by storytelling, books, and the complicated place of language in family life. At 10, she left home for boarding school in Owerri, an experience that widened her view of Nigeria early.

She wanted to be a spy before she wanted to be a novelist.

As a teenager, she dreamed about the CIA or KGB, but writing got there first. She earned her first money at 13 by winning a writing competition. Later she studied psychology at the University of Ibadan, where she was part of the Idia Hall chess team and also sang in the university's classical choir.

That mix, sharp observation, competitive focus, and a feel for rhythm, shows up in her work.

Before and alongside fiction, Nwaubani built a strong life in journalism and essays. She has written reported pieces, opinion essays, and personal reflections on Nigerian politics, everyday life, language, memory, and history. Her nonfiction often has the same qualities readers find in her novels: close detail, dry humor, and a willingness to sit with moral mess instead of rushing to easy answers.

Her debut novel, I Do Not Come to You by Chance, brought her wide attention. The book follows Kingsley Ibe, a young graduate who wants to live honestly but gets pulled toward his uncle's email scam empire when his family falls into crisis. Readers tend to like the book for its dark comedy, its clear-eyed look at money and status, and the way it shows how family duty can bend a person's choices. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Africa and a Betty Trask Award.

Her second novel, Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree, takes a very different path. Based on interviews with girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, it tells a young adult story about abduction, captivity, survival, and the stubborn effort to protect a future that others want to destroy. Readers often remember its directness. The book does not turn away from fear, but it also keeps its attention on the girl's inner life, her friendships, and her refusal to disappear inside the violence around her.

She doesn't write small, tidy problems.

Across both books, Nwaubani returns to pressure points that feel painfully real: family obligation, money, gender, power, belief, and the cost of living through public crisis. Even when the subject is grim, she makes room for irony and for the odd, recognizable details of ordinary life. That balance is a big part of what makes her work stick.

She lives in Abuja and continues to write essays and reported work as well as fiction. For new readers, she is an easy author to recommend if you want stories that are rooted in Nigeria, alive to the world around them, and deeply interested in how people keep going when the rules stop making sense.