Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on 100 most-influential list

The 37-year-old is described as a rare novelist

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been listed by Time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Three other Nigerians - Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, and #BringBackOurGirls campaigner Obiageli Ezekwesil - also appear on the list.

Ms Adichie, 37, is hailed by the US magazine as a "creator of characters".

The four Nigerians appear with three other Africans on the annual list.

They include Sudanese aid worker Mustafa Hassan, Liberia's Ebola-fighting doctor Jerry Brown and Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi.

Ms Adichie is described in the US magazine as "rare novelist who in the space of a year finds her words sampled by Beyonce, optioned by Lupita Nyong'o and honoured with the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction".

"With her viral TEDxEuston talk, We Should All Be Feminists, she found her voice as cultural critic," wrote Radhika Jones, a deputy managing editor of Time.

Africans on Time's 100 Most Influential People

Pioneers:

• Mustafa Hassan, Sudanese aid worker - "Truly he is a hero, making the world better one life at a time," David Miliband, International Rescue Committee CEO

Artists:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian author - "Her greatest power is as a creator of characters who struggle profoundly to understand their place in the world," Time's Radhika Jones

Leaders:

• Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerian president-elect - "A president-to-be who wants to leave a legacy to match the historic conditions of his election," Time's Aryn Baker

• Obiageli Ezekwesili, Nigerian #BringBackOurGirls campaigner - "It would have taken a long time to raise awareness about the girls taken by Boko Haram without her," Ugandan aid worker Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe

• Abubakar Shekau, Nigerian militant leader - "The citizens of Nigeria... know Abubakar Shekau all too well: He is the most violent killer their country has ever seen," retired US General Carter Ham

• Beji Caid Essebsi, Tunisia's president - "It will be up to Essebsi to ensure Tunisia defeats terrorism without compromising the promises of its revolution," NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin

Icons:

• Jerry Brown, Liberian doctor - "He took action and stopped people from dying of Ebola," English actor Idris Elba