TEDGlobal 2009
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story
Filmed:
Readability: 4.1
21,248,547 views
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Novelist
Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature. Full bio
Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I'm a storyteller.
0
0
2000
00:14
And I would like to tell you a few personal stories
1
2000
3000
00:17
about what I like to call "the danger of the single story."
2
5000
5000
00:22
I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria.
3
10000
4000
00:26
My mother says that I started reading at the age of two,
4
14000
3000
00:29
although I think four is probably close to the truth.
5
17000
5000
00:34
So I was an early reader, and what I read
6
22000
2000
00:36
were British and American children's books.
7
24000
3000
00:39
I was also an early writer,
8
27000
3000
00:42
and when I began to write, at about the age of seven,
9
30000
4000
00:46
stories in pencil with crayon illustrations
10
34000
2000
00:48
that my poor mother was obligated to read,
11
36000
3000
00:51
I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading:
12
39000
4000
00:55
All my characters were white and blue-eyed,
13
43000
5000
01:00
they played in the snow,
14
48000
2000
01:02
they ate apples,
15
50000
2000
01:04
and they talked a lot about the weather,
16
52000
2000
01:06
how lovely it was
17
54000
2000
01:08
that the sun had come out.
18
56000
2000
01:10
(Laughter)
19
58000
2000
01:12
Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria.
20
60000
3000
01:15
I had never been outside Nigeria.
21
63000
4000
01:19
We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes,
22
67000
3000
01:22
and we never talked about the weather,
23
70000
2000
01:24
because there was no need to.
24
72000
2000
01:26
My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer
25
74000
3000
01:29
because the characters in the British books I read
26
77000
2000
01:31
drank ginger beer.
27
79000
2000
01:33
Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was.
28
81000
3000
01:36
(Laughter)
29
84000
1000
01:37
And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire
30
85000
3000
01:40
to taste ginger beer.
31
88000
2000
01:42
But that is another story.
32
90000
2000
01:44
What this demonstrates, I think,
33
92000
2000
01:46
is how impressionable and vulnerable we are
34
94000
3000
01:49
in the face of a story,
35
97000
2000
01:51
particularly as children.
36
99000
2000
01:53
Because all I had read were books
37
101000
2000
01:55
in which characters were foreign,
38
103000
2000
01:57
I had become convinced that books
39
105000
2000
01:59
by their very nature had to have foreigners in them
40
107000
3000
02:02
and had to be about things with which
41
110000
2000
02:04
I could not personally identify.
42
112000
3000
02:07
Things changed when I discovered African books.
43
115000
4000
02:11
There weren't many of them available, and they weren't
44
119000
2000
02:13
quite as easy to find as the foreign books.
45
121000
2000
02:15
But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye
46
123000
4000
02:19
I went through a mental shift in my perception
47
127000
2000
02:21
of literature.
48
129000
2000
02:23
I realized that people like me,
49
131000
2000
02:25
girls with skin the color of chocolate,
50
133000
2000
02:27
whose kinky hair could not form ponytails,
51
135000
3000
02:30
could also exist in literature.
52
138000
2000
02:32
I started to write about things I recognized.
53
140000
4000
02:36
Now, I loved those American and British books I read.
54
144000
4000
02:40
They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me.
55
148000
4000
02:44
But the unintended consequence
56
152000
2000
02:46
was that I did not know that people like me
57
154000
2000
02:48
could exist in literature.
58
156000
2000
02:50
So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this:
59
158000
4000
02:54
It saved me from having a single story
60
162000
3000
02:57
of what books are.
61
165000
2000
02:59
I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family.
62
167000
3000
03:02
My father was a professor.
63
170000
2000
03:04
My mother was an administrator.
64
172000
3000
03:07
And so we had, as was the norm,
65
175000
3000
03:10
live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages.
66
178000
5000
03:15
So the year I turned eight we got a new house boy.
67
183000
4000
03:19
His name was Fide.
68
187000
2000
03:21
The only thing my mother told us about him
69
189000
3000
03:24
was that his family was very poor.
70
192000
3000
03:27
My mother sent yams and rice,
71
195000
2000
03:29
and our old clothes, to his family.
72
197000
3000
03:32
And when I didn't finish my dinner my mother would say,
73
200000
2000
03:34
"Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing."
74
202000
5000
03:39
So I felt enormous pity for Fide's family.
75
207000
4000
03:43
Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit,
76
211000
3000
03:46
and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket
77
214000
4000
03:50
made of dyed raffia that his brother had made.
78
218000
3000
03:53
I was startled.
79
221000
2000
03:55
It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family
80
223000
3000
03:58
could actually make something.
81
226000
3000
04:01
All I had heard about them was how poor they were,
82
229000
3000
04:04
so that it had become impossible for me to see them
83
232000
2000
04:06
as anything else but poor.
84
234000
3000
04:09
Their poverty was my single story of them.
85
237000
4000
04:13
Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria
86
241000
2000
04:15
to go to university in the United States.
87
243000
3000
04:18
I was 19.
88
246000
2000
04:20
My American roommate was shocked by me.
89
248000
4000
04:24
She asked where I had learned to speak English so well,
90
252000
3000
04:27
and was confused when I said that Nigeria
91
255000
2000
04:29
happened to have English as its official language.
92
257000
5000
04:34
She asked if she could listen to what she called my "tribal music,"
93
262000
4000
04:38
and was consequently very disappointed
94
266000
2000
04:40
when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey.
95
268000
2000
04:42
(Laughter)
96
270000
3000
04:45
She assumed that I did not know how
97
273000
2000
04:47
to use a stove.
98
275000
3000
04:50
What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me
99
278000
2000
04:52
even before she saw me.
100
280000
2000
04:54
Her default position toward me, as an African,
101
282000
4000
04:58
was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity.
102
286000
4000
05:02
My roommate had a single story of Africa:
103
290000
3000
05:05
a single story of catastrophe.
104
293000
3000
05:08
In this single story there was no possibility
105
296000
2000
05:10
of Africans being similar to her in any way,
106
298000
4000
05:14
no possibility of feelings more complex than pity,
107
302000
3000
05:17
no possibility of a connection as human equals.
108
305000
4000
05:21
I must say that before I went to the U.S. I didn't
109
309000
2000
05:23
consciously identify as African.
110
311000
3000
05:26
But in the U.S. whenever Africa came up people turned to me.
111
314000
3000
05:29
Never mind that I knew nothing about places like Namibia.
112
317000
4000
05:33
But I did come to embrace this new identity,
113
321000
2000
05:35
and in many ways I think of myself now as African.
114
323000
3000
05:38
Although I still get quite irritable when
115
326000
2000
05:40
Africa is referred to as a country,
116
328000
2000
05:42
the most recent example being my otherwise wonderful flight
117
330000
4000
05:46
from Lagos two days ago, in which
118
334000
2000
05:48
there was an announcement on the Virgin flight
119
336000
2000
05:50
about the charity work in "India, Africa and other countries."
120
338000
5000
05:55
(Laughter)
121
343000
1000
05:56
So after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African,
122
344000
4000
06:00
I began to understand my roommate's response to me.
123
348000
4000
06:04
If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa
124
352000
3000
06:07
were from popular images,
125
355000
2000
06:09
I too would think that Africa was a place of
126
357000
3000
06:12
beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals,
127
360000
4000
06:16
and incomprehensible people,
128
364000
2000
06:18
fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS,
129
366000
3000
06:21
unable to speak for themselves
130
369000
3000
06:24
and waiting to be saved
131
372000
2000
06:26
by a kind, white foreigner.
132
374000
3000
06:29
I would see Africans in the same way that I,
133
377000
2000
06:31
as a child, had seen Fide's family.
134
379000
4000
06:35
This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western literature.
135
383000
4000
06:39
Now, here is a quote from
136
387000
2000
06:41
the writing of a London merchant called John Locke,
137
389000
3000
06:44
who sailed to west Africa in 1561
138
392000
3000
06:47
and kept a fascinating account of his voyage.
139
395000
5000
06:52
After referring to the black Africans
140
400000
2000
06:54
as "beasts who have no houses,"
141
402000
2000
06:56
he writes, "They are also people without heads,
142
404000
4000
07:00
having their mouth and eyes in their breasts."
143
408000
5000
07:05
Now, I've laughed every time I've read this.
144
413000
2000
07:07
And one must admire the imagination of John Locke.
145
415000
4000
07:11
But what is important about his writing is that
146
419000
2000
07:13
it represents the beginning
147
421000
2000
07:15
of a tradition of telling African stories in the West:
148
423000
3000
07:18
A tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives,
149
426000
3000
07:21
of difference, of darkness,
150
429000
2000
07:23
of people who, in the words of the wonderful poet
151
431000
4000
07:27
Rudyard Kipling,
152
435000
2000
07:29
are "half devil, half child."
153
437000
3000
07:32
And so I began to realize that my American roommate
154
440000
3000
07:35
must have throughout her life
155
443000
2000
07:37
seen and heard different versions
156
445000
2000
07:39
of this single story,
157
447000
2000
07:41
as had a professor,
158
449000
2000
07:43
who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African."
159
451000
5000
07:48
Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things
160
456000
2000
07:50
wrong with the novel,
161
458000
2000
07:52
that it had failed in a number of places,
162
460000
4000
07:56
but I had not quite imagined that it had failed
163
464000
2000
07:58
at achieving something called African authenticity.
164
466000
3000
08:01
In fact I did not know what
165
469000
2000
08:03
African authenticity was.
166
471000
3000
08:06
The professor told me that my characters
167
474000
2000
08:08
were too much like him,
168
476000
2000
08:10
an educated and middle-class man.
169
478000
2000
08:12
My characters drove cars.
170
480000
2000
08:14
They were not starving.
171
482000
3000
08:17
Therefore they were not authentically African.
172
485000
4000
08:21
But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty
173
489000
3000
08:24
in the question of the single story.
174
492000
3000
08:27
A few years ago, I visited Mexico from the U.S.
175
495000
4000
08:31
The political climate in the U.S. at the time was tense,
176
499000
2000
08:33
and there were debates going on about immigration.
177
501000
4000
08:37
And, as often happens in America,
178
505000
2000
08:39
immigration became synonymous with Mexicans.
179
507000
3000
08:42
There were endless stories of Mexicans
180
510000
2000
08:44
as people who were
181
512000
2000
08:46
fleecing the healthcare system,
182
514000
2000
08:48
sneaking across the border,
183
516000
2000
08:50
being arrested at the border, that sort of thing.
184
518000
4000
08:54
I remember walking around on my first day in Guadalajara,
185
522000
4000
08:58
watching the people going to work,
186
526000
2000
09:00
rolling up tortillas in the marketplace,
187
528000
2000
09:02
smoking, laughing.
188
530000
3000
09:05
I remember first feeling slight surprise.
189
533000
3000
09:08
And then I was overwhelmed with shame.
190
536000
3000
09:11
I realized that I had been so immersed
191
539000
3000
09:14
in the media coverage of Mexicans
192
542000
2000
09:16
that they had become one thing in my mind,
193
544000
2000
09:18
the abject immigrant.
194
546000
3000
09:21
I had bought into the single story of Mexicans
195
549000
2000
09:23
and I could not have been more ashamed of myself.
196
551000
3000
09:26
So that is how to create a single story,
197
554000
2000
09:28
show a people as one thing,
198
556000
3000
09:31
as only one thing,
199
559000
2000
09:33
over and over again,
200
561000
2000
09:35
and that is what they become.
201
563000
3000
09:38
It is impossible to talk about the single story
202
566000
2000
09:40
without talking about power.
203
568000
3000
09:43
There is a word, an Igbo word,
204
571000
2000
09:45
that I think about whenever I think about
205
573000
2000
09:47
the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali."
206
575000
3000
09:50
It's a noun that loosely translates
207
578000
2000
09:52
to "to be greater than another."
208
580000
3000
09:55
Like our economic and political worlds,
209
583000
3000
09:58
stories too are defined
210
586000
2000
10:00
by the principle of nkali:
211
588000
3000
10:03
How they are told, who tells them,
212
591000
2000
10:05
when they're told, how many stories are told,
213
593000
3000
10:08
are really dependent on power.
214
596000
4000
10:12
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person,
215
600000
3000
10:15
but to make it the definitive story of that person.
216
603000
4000
10:19
The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes
217
607000
2000
10:21
that if you want to dispossess a people,
218
609000
3000
10:24
the simplest way to do it is to tell their story
219
612000
3000
10:27
and to start with, "secondly."
220
615000
3000
10:30
Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans,
221
618000
4000
10:34
and not with the arrival of the British,
222
622000
3000
10:37
and you have an entirely different story.
223
625000
3000
10:40
Start the story with
224
628000
2000
10:42
the failure of the African state,
225
630000
2000
10:44
and not with the colonial creation of the African state,
226
632000
4000
10:48
and you have an entirely different story.
227
636000
4000
10:52
I recently spoke at a university where
228
640000
2000
10:54
a student told me that it was
229
642000
2000
10:56
such a shame
230
644000
2000
10:58
that Nigerian men were physical abusers
231
646000
3000
11:01
like the father character in my novel.
232
649000
3000
11:04
I told him that I had just read a novel
233
652000
2000
11:06
called American Psycho --
234
654000
2000
11:08
(Laughter)
235
656000
2000
11:10
-- and that it was such a shame
236
658000
2000
11:12
that young Americans were serial murderers.
237
660000
3000
11:15
(Laughter)
238
663000
4000
11:19
(Applause)
239
667000
6000
11:25
Now, obviously I said this in a fit of mild irritation.
240
673000
3000
11:28
(Laughter)
241
676000
2000
11:30
But it would never have occurred to me to think
242
678000
2000
11:32
that just because I had read a novel
243
680000
2000
11:34
in which a character was a serial killer
244
682000
2000
11:36
that he was somehow representative
245
684000
2000
11:38
of all Americans.
246
686000
2000
11:40
This is not because I am a better person than that student,
247
688000
3000
11:43
but because of America's cultural and economic power,
248
691000
3000
11:46
I had many stories of America.
249
694000
2000
11:48
I had read Tyler and Updike and Steinbeck and Gaitskill.
250
696000
4000
11:52
I did not have a single story of America.
251
700000
3000
11:55
When I learned, some years ago, that writers were expected
252
703000
3000
11:58
to have had really unhappy childhoods
253
706000
4000
12:02
to be successful,
254
710000
2000
12:04
I began to think about how I could invent
255
712000
2000
12:06
horrible things my parents had done to me.
256
714000
2000
12:08
(Laughter)
257
716000
2000
12:10
But the truth is that I had a very happy childhood,
258
718000
4000
12:14
full of laughter and love, in a very close-knit family.
259
722000
3000
12:17
But I also had grandfathers who died in refugee camps.
260
725000
4000
12:21
My cousin Polle died because he could not get adequate healthcare.
261
729000
4000
12:25
One of my closest friends, Okoloma, died in a plane crash
262
733000
3000
12:28
because our fire trucks did not have water.
263
736000
3000
12:31
I grew up under repressive military governments
264
739000
3000
12:34
that devalued education,
265
742000
2000
12:36
so that sometimes my parents were not paid their salaries.
266
744000
3000
12:39
And so, as a child, I saw jam disappear from the breakfast table,
267
747000
4000
12:43
then margarine disappeared,
268
751000
2000
12:45
then bread became too expensive,
269
753000
3000
12:48
then milk became rationed.
270
756000
3000
12:51
And most of all, a kind of normalized political fear
271
759000
3000
12:54
invaded our lives.
272
762000
4000
12:58
All of these stories make me who I am.
273
766000
2000
13:00
But to insist on only these negative stories
274
768000
4000
13:04
is to flatten my experience
275
772000
3000
13:07
and to overlook the many other stories
276
775000
2000
13:09
that formed me.
277
777000
2000
13:11
The single story creates stereotypes,
278
779000
3000
13:14
and the problem with stereotypes
279
782000
3000
13:17
is not that they are untrue,
280
785000
2000
13:19
but that they are incomplete.
281
787000
2000
13:21
They make one story become the only story.
282
789000
4000
13:25
Of course, Africa is a continent full of catastrophes:
283
793000
2000
13:27
There are immense ones, such as the horrific rapes in Congo
284
795000
4000
13:31
and depressing ones, such as the fact that
285
799000
2000
13:33
5,000 people apply for one job vacancy in Nigeria.
286
801000
5000
13:38
But there are other stories that are not about catastrophe,
287
806000
3000
13:41
and it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them.
288
809000
4000
13:45
I've always felt that it is impossible
289
813000
2000
13:47
to engage properly with a place or a person
290
815000
3000
13:50
without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person.
291
818000
4000
13:54
The consequence of the single story
292
822000
3000
13:57
is this: It robs people of dignity.
293
825000
3000
14:00
It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult.
294
828000
4000
14:04
It emphasizes how we are different
295
832000
3000
14:07
rather than how we are similar.
296
835000
2000
14:09
So what if before my Mexican trip
297
837000
2000
14:11
I had followed the immigration debate from both sides,
298
839000
4000
14:15
the U.S. and the Mexican?
299
843000
2000
14:17
What if my mother had told us that Fide's family was poor
300
845000
4000
14:21
and hardworking?
301
849000
2000
14:23
What if we had an African television network
302
851000
2000
14:25
that broadcast diverse African stories all over the world?
303
853000
4000
14:29
What the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe calls
304
857000
2000
14:31
"a balance of stories."
305
859000
3000
14:34
What if my roommate knew about my Nigerian publisher,
306
862000
3000
14:37
Mukta Bakaray,
307
865000
2000
14:39
a remarkable man who left his job in a bank
308
867000
2000
14:41
to follow his dream and start a publishing house?
309
869000
3000
14:44
Now, the conventional wisdom was that Nigerians don't read literature.
310
872000
4000
14:48
He disagreed. He felt
311
876000
2000
14:50
that people who could read, would read,
312
878000
2000
14:52
if you made literature affordable and available to them.
313
880000
4000
14:56
Shortly after he published my first novel
314
884000
3000
14:59
I went to a TV station in Lagos to do an interview,
315
887000
3000
15:02
and a woman who worked there as a messenger came up to me and said,
316
890000
3000
15:05
"I really liked your novel. I didn't like the ending.
317
893000
3000
15:08
Now you must write a sequel, and this is what will happen ..."
318
896000
3000
15:11
(Laughter)
319
899000
3000
15:14
And she went on to tell me what to write in the sequel.
320
902000
3000
15:17
I was not only charmed, I was very moved.
321
905000
3000
15:20
Here was a woman, part of the ordinary masses of Nigerians,
322
908000
3000
15:23
who were not supposed to be readers.
323
911000
3000
15:26
She had not only read the book, but she had taken ownership of it
324
914000
2000
15:28
and felt justified in telling me
325
916000
3000
15:31
what to write in the sequel.
326
919000
2000
15:33
Now, what if my roommate knew about my friend Fumi Onda,
327
921000
4000
15:37
a fearless woman who hosts a TV show in Lagos,
328
925000
3000
15:40
and is determined to tell the stories that we prefer to forget?
329
928000
3000
15:43
What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure
330
931000
4000
15:47
that was performed in the Lagos hospital last week?
331
935000
3000
15:50
What if my roommate knew about contemporary Nigerian music,
332
938000
4000
15:54
talented people singing in English and Pidgin,
333
942000
3000
15:57
and Igbo and Yoruba and Ijo,
334
945000
2000
15:59
mixing influences from Jay-Z to Fela
335
947000
4000
16:03
to Bob Marley to their grandfathers.
336
951000
3000
16:06
What if my roommate knew about the female lawyer
337
954000
2000
16:08
who recently went to court in Nigeria
338
956000
2000
16:10
to challenge a ridiculous law
339
958000
2000
16:12
that required women to get their husband's consent
340
960000
3000
16:15
before renewing their passports?
341
963000
3000
16:18
What if my roommate knew about Nollywood,
342
966000
3000
16:21
full of innovative people making films despite great technical odds,
343
969000
4000
16:25
films so popular
344
973000
2000
16:27
that they really are the best example
345
975000
2000
16:29
of Nigerians consuming what they produce?
346
977000
3000
16:32
What if my roommate knew about my wonderfully ambitious hair braider,
347
980000
3000
16:35
who has just started her own business selling hair extensions?
348
983000
4000
16:39
Or about the millions of other Nigerians
349
987000
2000
16:41
who start businesses and sometimes fail,
350
989000
2000
16:43
but continue to nurse ambition?
351
991000
4000
16:47
Every time I am home I am confronted with
352
995000
2000
16:49
the usual sources of irritation for most Nigerians:
353
997000
3000
16:52
our failed infrastructure, our failed government,
354
1000000
3000
16:55
but also by the incredible resilience of people who
355
1003000
3000
16:58
thrive despite the government,
356
1006000
3000
17:01
rather than because of it.
357
1009000
2000
17:03
I teach writing workshops in Lagos every summer,
358
1011000
3000
17:06
and it is amazing to me how many people apply,
359
1014000
3000
17:09
how many people are eager to write,
360
1017000
3000
17:12
to tell stories.
361
1020000
2000
17:14
My Nigerian publisher and I have just started a non-profit
362
1022000
3000
17:17
called Farafina Trust,
363
1025000
2000
17:19
and we have big dreams of building libraries
364
1027000
3000
17:22
and refurbishing libraries that already exist
365
1030000
2000
17:24
and providing books for state schools
366
1032000
3000
17:27
that don't have anything in their libraries,
367
1035000
2000
17:29
and also of organizing lots and lots of workshops,
368
1037000
2000
17:31
in reading and writing,
369
1039000
2000
17:33
for all the people who are eager to tell our many stories.
370
1041000
3000
17:36
Stories matter.
371
1044000
2000
17:38
Many stories matter.
372
1046000
2000
17:40
Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign,
373
1048000
4000
17:44
but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
374
1052000
4000
17:48
Stories can break the dignity of a people,
375
1056000
3000
17:51
but stories can also repair that broken dignity.
376
1059000
5000
17:56
The American writer Alice Walker wrote this
377
1064000
2000
17:58
about her Southern relatives
378
1066000
2000
18:00
who had moved to the North.
379
1068000
2000
18:02
She introduced them to a book about
380
1070000
2000
18:04
the Southern life that they had left behind:
381
1072000
3000
18:07
"They sat around, reading the book themselves,
382
1075000
4000
18:11
listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained."
383
1079000
6000
18:17
I would like to end with this thought:
384
1085000
3000
18:20
That when we reject the single story,
385
1088000
3000
18:23
when we realize that there is never a single story
386
1091000
3000
18:26
about any place,
387
1094000
2000
18:28
we regain a kind of paradise.
388
1096000
2000
18:30
Thank you.
389
1098000
2000
18:32
(Applause)
390
1100000
8000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - NovelistInspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature.
Why you should listen
In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.
Adichie's newest book, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with a corrupted context in their home country, and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.
Adichie builds on the literary tradition of Igbo literary giant Chinua Achebe—and when she found out that Achebe liked Half of a Yellow Sun, she says she cried for a whole day. What he said about her rings true: “We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers.”
(Photo: Wani Olatunde)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Speaker | TED.com