Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichieis a Nigerian novelist, nonfiction writer and short story writer. A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Adichie has been called "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature"...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth15 September 1977
CountryNigeria
mean past rights
In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here's the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven't lynched somebody then you can't be called a racist. If you're not a bloodsucking monster, then you can't be called a racist. Somebody has to be able to say that racists are not monsters.
lying stranger easy
How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.
race white-privilege choices
Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.
real writing stories
I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.
character intelligent medicine
The best novels are those that are important without being like medicine; they have something to say, are expansive and intelligent but never forget to be entertaining and to have character and emotion at their centre.
school home writing
If the government doesn't fund education, which they often don't, students are going to stay home and not go to school. It affects them directly. But I'm really not interested in writing explicitly about that. I'm really interested in human beings, and in love, and in family. Somehow, politics comes in.
war writing profound
My grandfather died in the war, my family went through the war, and it affected my parents in really profound ways. I've always wanted to write about that period - in some ways to digest it for myself, something that defined me but that I didn't go through.
art believe writing
I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.
columbia maryland divides
I divide my time between Columbia, Maryland, and Lagos, Nigeria.
beautiful ideas challenges
I am interested in challenging the mainstream ideas of what is beautiful and what is acceptable.
reality poverty culture
I had consumed a lot of American culture, but I was not quite prepared for the reality of American poverty.
poverty discovering american-poverty
One of the things that struck me when I came to the U.S. was discovering American poverty.
book writing thinking
Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.
men position-of-power population
About 52% of the world's population is female. But most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men. The late Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai put it simply and well when she said 'The higher you go, the fewer women there are.'