Mr. Adenle, who grew up in Nigeria and now lives in London, said that more Nigerian novelists are experimenting with commercial tropes, writing for pure entertainment, and many no longer feel compelled to write novels that respond to the legacy of colonialism or Western notions about African literature.

As more young Nigerian debut authors rise to global prominence, the diversity and range of the country’s fiction is on full display. Chigozie Obioma’s debut novel, “The Fishermen,” a biblical parable set during the military dictatorship of the 1990s, was translated into more than 20 languages and was a finalist for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Last year, Elnathan John’s debut novel “Born on a Tuesday,” which tackles the rise of Islamic extremism through the eyes of a homeless teenager who gets swept up in political violence, was heralded as “a stunning, important coming-of-age story” by a critic in Publishers Weekly.

In August, Knopf published Ayobami Adebayo’s debut novel, “Stay With Me,” a portrait of a Nigerian couple struggling with infertility, whose marriage is strained when his conservative family pressures him to take a second wife. The novel, which was published in Nigeria this spring, was shortlisted for Britain’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and received ecstatic reviews in The Guardian and The New York Times. Ms. Ayobami, who studied fiction writing with Ms. Adichie and Margaret Atwood, said she worried at first that Nigerian readers might balk at a novel that hinges on culturally touchy subjects like polygamy, infidelity and belief in magic. “I was quite nervous before the book came out here, but the response so far has been quite positive,” said Ms. Ayobami, who lives in Ile-Ife, in southwestern Nigeria.

Writers and publishers in Nigeria still face significant obstacles. Until fairly recently, the commercial publishing market consisted primarily of educational books. Piracy remains an entrenched problem that saps profits from the music, film and publishing industries. Pirated copies of books circulate at open air markets, and formal bookstores are scarce in some regions. Illiteracy remains an entrenched problem in parts of the country. And books are still considered an out-of-reach luxury for much of the population. The minimum wage in Nigeria hovers around $59 a month, and a new book costs around $8.

Despite such hurdles, Nigeria’s publishing industry has blossomed in recent years, following the country’s return to democracy in 1999 after decades of military dictatorship.

In the last decade or so, literary festivals, book prizes and writing workshops have sprung up around the country, and a handful of influential new publishing houses have been formed, including Cassava Republic, Farafina, Parrésia and Ouida Books, which was founded last year by the novelist Lola Shoneyin.

Ms. Shoneyin, the author of “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives,” has emerged as a prominent figure in Nigeria’s publishing scene, somewhere between an impresario and a literary fairy godmother. In addition to writing fiction and running Ouida Books, she founded the Ake Festival, a five-day literary event in Abeokuta that began in 2013, and curated the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival, which kicked off this summer in northern Nigeria, a predominantly Muslim region that has suffered attacks by the fundamentalist group Boko Haram.