Nigerian-American Author, Tomi Adeyemi Named On TIME’s Most Influential People Of 2020 List + Some Facts About Her

Nigerian-American writer and novelist, Tomi Adeyemi has been listed on TIME’s Most Influential People of 2020 list.

She is the only female out of the four Nigerians on the list.

Tomi is known for her debut novel Children of Blood and Bone which went on to become a bestseller.

In a piece written by Nigerian-born actor John Boyega for TIME Magazine, Adeyemi is called the ‘god of ideas’.

He wrote: She’s inspiring a lot of young people to write. She creates the very world that we as actors get to play in. And the big-screen adaptation will hire a lot of people and bring more representation to our industry—all that comes directly from Tomi’s imagination. She is going to be very powerful when it comes to bringing stories and ideas to the forefront.

I would absolutely drop everything to be in the film. If I missed the opportunity to be a part of it, it would be like missing history.

Here are some facts about her.

1.Tomi Adeyemi was born on August 1, 1993, in Chicago, the United States to immigrant parents.

2.Her father worked as a taxi driver while her mother was a cleaning woman. 

3.Adeyemi wrote her first story when she was five years old.

4. She graduated from Hinsdale Central High School in Hinsdale, Illinois in 2011.

5. Tomi was qualified into the Hinsdale Central High School Foundation’s Young Scholar Program in 2008 and went on to win their “Young Scholars” scholarship in 2010–2011.

6. Tomi also received the Rani Sharma scholarship during her senior year.

7. She went on to graduate from Harvard University with an honors degree in English Literature, then studied West African mythology and culture in Salvador, Brazil, on a fellowship.

8. She worked at a Los Angeles film production company after she moved to California.

9. Adeyemi’s debut novel, Children of Blood and Bone, was released in March 2018 and debuted at number 1 on The New York Times Young Adult Hardcover Bestseller List.

10.Children of Blood and Bone was awarded the 2018 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, the 2019 Waterstones Book Prize, and the 2019 Hugo Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.

11. She was named on Forbes 30 under 30 List in 2019.