Peace Adzo Medie is an award-winning scholar and author. She is associate professor in politics at the University of Bristol and her research is at the intersection of African studies, women’s and gender studies, and international relations. She studies state and non-state actor responses to gender-based violence and other forms of insecurity. Her book, Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa, was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press. Her second monograph, which is in progress, draws on survey and interview data to study women traditional leaders and their evolving roles and impact on women’s security and rights in Botswana, Ghana, Liberia, and South Africa. She is also writing and producing a documentary on the subject.

Her debut novel, His Only Wife, was published in 2020 by Algonquin Books. It was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, a New York Times Notable Book of 2020, and a Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020. It was also a Reese’s Book Club Pick. His Only Wife is available in Croatian, Dutch, Italian, French, and Russian, with more translations forthcoming. Her second novel, Nightbloom, was published in 2023 by Algonquin Books and was longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Slice Magazine, Transition, Four Way Review, and elsewhere.

Medie’s research has been supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, and her findings have been published in African Affairs, International Studies Review, Politics & Gender, the European Journal of Politics and Gender, and elsewhere. She has won many awards for her work, including the Best Article Award of the European Journal of Politics and Gender and the African Author Prize of African Affairs. She has also held several fellowships, including the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders fellowship.

She was an editor of African Affairs, the top-ranked African studies journal, from 2017 to 2022 and co-edits the Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations book series.

Medie earned a BA in Geography from the University of Ghana, an MA in International Studies from Ohio University, and a PhD in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the University of Bristol, she was a Research Fellow at LECIAD, University of Ghana. She attended OLA Secondary School, Ho, and was born in Liberia.

Read her CV here.