Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Trevor Noah—2017 PEN World Voices Festival

the pen world voices festival could literally not have chosen a better location than right here in New York City our city is so proud to has one of the most diverse populations on the planet we have a city of an estimated 800 languages that are spoken three million immigrants and 8.5 million stories and voices to borrow an old phrase you could say that we are the world and we understand better than anyone how important it is that diverse voices the world over are heard at the mayor's office of media entertainment we do our part in fostering that dialogue our office encompasses the key economic sectors of film TV music advertising digital content and theater and in total these sectors account for over three hundred and five thousand jobs in the city with an economic output of a hundred and four billion dollars we also oversee NYC media which is the nation's largest municipal public broadcasting entity with five TV stations in a radio station with a reach of 18 million households in a 50-mile radius and speaking of TV we love Trevor Noah he is as you all know the hilari yes absolutely he is truly hilarious as the host of The Daily Show and we are so proud to call his show made in New York Trevor's book born a crime is one that quite frankly all New Yorkers should read and speaking of books which is why we are all here tonight our office recently launched the largest community read in the country called one book one New York you may have seen our ads in the subway and you may have read or seen that Jim Amanda's book Americana won the public vote and as I was telling her backstage it's so exciting to see because literally you see strangers in the subway or people interacting over social media or coming to the dozens of events that we have around the city to discuss Americana and the important themes it raises about immigration race and identity if you're interested in coming to one of the events we're doing around one book one New York please come to our website at nyc.gov slash M ome and one book one New York was just our first program as the city's go-to agency in the publishing industry we could not have done it without our wonderful partners at penguin Random House which brings me to our next speaker as CEO of penguin Random House since its formation in 2013 Marcus doula has been one of Publishing's most impactful proponents of the power of books and reading to connect and to change lives he and his colleagues at penguin Random House are great champions of the pen America world voices festival and have helped make this evening possible please join me in welcoming Marcus thank I promise I keep it short I'm I'm so hello everyone and and good evening um I'm actually proud to welcome you to tonight's event featuring three members of our penguin Random House family our authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Applause] with Chris Jackson publisher and editor-in-chief of one wall on behalf of nearly 5,000 writers translators and editors of pen it's my great pleasure to have you here with us tonight for the 13th annual pen world voices festival of international literature I am honoured to be a trustee of pen America which stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free and open expression here in the US and around the world we champion the freedom to write recognizing the power of the word to transform the world our mission is a pen to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative voices and defend the liberties that enable each one to express themselves without fear at penguin Random House we foster healthy discourse and understanding by giving diverse voices opinions and ideas a platform and an audience with that the goals of pen and penguin Random House are very much aligned for me personally working with pen has also been a privilege as a student of history who grew up in a divided post-war Germany I am grateful for this matchless opportunity to expand my role as a social activist for free speech and for a society based on equality and fairness this is no ordinary time for pen America we face unprecedented threats to all most important shared values and your support is more crucial than ever in our fight to protect freedom of expression and the press defend fact-based discourse and resist measures that would impair the free flow of ideas and opinions I encourage you to to visit pen org or one of our info tables outside after the events to learn more about pen I like to thank our sponsors the mayor's office of media entertainment and the village Voice's for their support with this event thank you all for coming tonight and a big thank you again to Chimamanda Trevor and Kris over to you thank you very much Marcus hope everyone can hear so and thank you guys for being here it's such an honor to be here with both of you who known for so long and have admired for so I actually try to having me that long but we worked very closely together so thank you very much we've made up for in the intensity relationship and I like to thank all of you for being here and for also continuing to applaud even after these two are introduced so even though you have no idea who I am um it is such a beautiful night there's so much love in the room such a beautiful night outside as well so I am going to bring a stinking corpse now onto the stage which is the results of our recent election and I bring this up because of our conversation tonight is going to be about straddling cultural identity and how well you've done it and I thought it was really interesting that in the aftermath of the recent election both of you wrote pieces immediately after the election that got spread around passed around to people and it was interesting because you're both basically African immigrants country basically I'm not sure how legal illegal but you are here and you both responded in really intersting light so I'm just going to read just a short passage from each of your pieces because I think what I'm curious about is how much of your reaction was back informed by your by the cultures you grew up in and the country and that perspective - Amanda you wrote a piece in The New Yorker cause now is the time to talk about what we are actually talking about incredibly powerful piece and you said now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just now is the time to speak up and wear as a badge of honor the appropriate of bigots now is the time to confront the wheat core at the heart of America's addiction to optimism it allows too little room for resilience and too much for agility hazy visions of healing and not becoming the hate we hate some dangerously like appeasement the responsibility to forge unity belongs not to the denigrated but to the denigrate errs the premise for empathy has to be equal humanity it is an injustice to demand that the maligned identify with those who questioned their humanity and you started this piece off saying that America's always an aspirational to you so how much of your reaction to that was informed by this kind of straddling of your cultural identities do you think I think all of it I don't think of myself as an immigrant to the US I think of myself as a Nigerian who lives in America and because of my sensibilities and I don't have to say entirely Nigerian but I do want to say largely shaped by Nigeria and I didn't leave home to go to the US until I was 19 so so I wasn't a child and I grew up in a military dictatorship enrolled under general Bihari mangabeira bachi and so growing up in that kind of political space I remember being a child and my parents and my friends were talking in our living room and you know we're a fairly big house and a large yard and the doors were closed and my parents were whispering because we're talking about the government and I remember thinking why did you scream and and it stayed in my mind as an example of what it means to live in a dictatorship and having come here I mean I very quickly realized America's democracy has not ever really been tested and I think the cause of that there's a kind of complacency that can resolve and so when the president the person who's president was elected disappointing after years of same President Obama but anyway to say I what I was shocked by no but really what I was jumped by was how very quickly people sort of this rush to try and find the bright side or people started talking about his strategy you know people then decided to live what to me was obviously unhinged ransom people decided to label strategy and there was a plan behind it a loser and I just thought the reason and and I think that exactly that that impulse came from just what I think or is incredible American discomfort with this council Americans don't like to be uncomfortable and I think it's also linked to this optimism I mean on the one hand there's a lot I admire about that and I think it if the reason people come to this country there is and if you compare it to the kind of world weary European war with me the world is dark you know it's a bit askew I mean I think you I I think that's it it's obviously if I pick say American optimism tonight but I think you can go to fun especially when it then has to relate what to me is a dangerous administration and I just felt really frustrated because I thought this is not the time to take over that American optimism look at the bright side we can't be uncomfortable so we have something I just that piece came in just one mad rush one morning he because I I think I think democracy is a very fragile thing and I think that certain things that people said would never happen in this country but they are in fact happening I don't I don't think that many people thought that this would be a country where people would be scared to be to travel to be at the airport and and I have a friend who now everywhere she goes she has a green card in her in her bag and there's something about for me that's very sad because you know she said you just never know and there's a great sadness carrying a green card everywhere with you apart from the exact totality of it because if you use it it's a terrible process too you know you can't get it back but also it says something about about this person's view of a new America and it seemed to me that that is important to push back at that and and that one of the things that was important to do was to just drop that idea that we can't be uncomfortable we have to be optimistic all the time there's very little cause for optimism three days later Trevor wrote a piece that was also in a in the New York Times Magazine actually he said I grew up under the harsh racial oppression of apartheid as a person of mixed ethnicity the lines between black and white were clearly drawn and enforced with guns and tanks but because I'm neither black nor white I was forced to live between those lines I was forced to communicate across those lines I was forced to learn how to approach people in problems with nuance if I hadn't I wouldn't have survived America I found doesn't like nuance either black people are criminals or cops are racist picked one versus them you're with us or you're against us this national mentality is fueled by the hysteria of a 24-hour news cycle by the ideological silos of social media and by the structure of the country's politics so in the aftermath of the election when you two actually thought of America is being and it's so clear in your book in in some of the episodes you write about as being an aspirational place all right did the election ship that for you as well I think where we're at differs slightly from Chimamanda is I agree with the aspiration I don't think that negates the ability of a nation or people to take multiple steps backwards you know my mom always used to say to me life will continue to teach you a lesson until you learn it and the ultimate lesson will be death and she used to say that to me talking just about being a young man of color growing up in a world where the police could innocently take your life right you know she always said that to me she'd say learn to listen now from me when I'm the authority figure before there is another that you have to deal with and so I think when when I looked at the u.s. post the election I struggled to I struggle to to hold on to the narrative that there shouldn't be optimism because I look at numbers I agree with you completely when you say America is a place where you know the I guess the truth sort of came out in a way that many people weren't comfortable with but then I also look at the numbers and I look at the relics that in many ways Donald Trump has exposed in America's democracy you know I said there's some of the thing I said Donald Trump is the stress test of America's democracy sometimes you don't realize where your roof is leaking until the major storm comes and in that moment I don't know maybe it's just me I'm not the kind of person who goes well I'm gonna move now I say well now it's time to start thinking of how to patch this roof because I don't believe it'll rain forever and so when I when I look at Donald Trump and look at post-election I go I still have to look at the numbers I still have to look at more Americans voting for Hillary now that's something that that's still something that that sticks with me as I go I can't just ignore the fact that three million more people voted for this person I can't ignore that I can't ignore the fact that it's some complicated electoral system that's a slave holdover that that gave Donald Trump the victory you know I I can't I struggled to grapple with that idea and I think that idea of mine has been reinforced you know in this post 100 days of Donald Trump because I go here is a nation where many people I agree were complacent and yet now I see people who like myself at many times has have felt we don't know how to help what to do but people are doing things I've seen you know hundreds of thousands of women marching hundreds of thousands of men joining them on marches I've seen people marching and fighting for what they believe in engaging with their with their politicians I mean I saw Americans protecting Muslims in an airport while they prayed that's something I never thought I'd see in my entire life after 9/11 to have Muslims in the airport Americans standing around them and I know someone might be like aurilla but that's a that's a smoke but that's not a small thing for me that is a moment where people in that aspirational moment saw themselves as maybe being better or trying to be better and what I do appreciate is sometimes the gift and the curse of optimism but for me that the gift mostly of optimism is it almost tricks you into trying to be better or it tricks you into trying to get to that place and although you may not always achieve that I do see signs and glimmers of hope and and I guess that's that's why I wrote my piece and the way I did and I think some people misunderstand it because they go they think you're saying all people must come together I'm not naive to think that that will ever happen right there are certain people where as you say you change the policies before they change their hearts and that's what a good nation the government should do in my opinion but I do feel like there are divisions that come from the trauma of a loss and what happens is an in fighting occurs and that's what I was speaking about post the election is the divisions that happen within that group that voted against Donald Trump within that group people now go this is your fault that we lost this no it's your fault that we lost and people going like yep but let's not focus on the person that won now because that's the issue yes we've got to keep on working on these fishes that we have and they may become you know they may become greater now that this has happened but at the same time this is not the time to be divided and maybe I do go back to South Africa where at some point the ANC Cosatu the IFP everyone had to say okay we have a common enemy we have to figure out how we're going to defeat the apartheid government and as much as we don't agree on small ideas we have to figure out how that thing that oppresses all of us will be defeated and that's really the idea that there came to my mind post the election was if people aren't careful when the next election comes it's not that Donald Trump will be unbeatable it's that no one will agree on who should beat him and then you'll be prized into two terms a lot quicker because on Donald Trump cider they've showed 90% of the supporters still go yeah this guy's doing a fantastic job and so that side is not shaky at all people need to work on the on the unity of their side because what I always talk about so I thought was interesting which he said adding on just about your own friends of your identity that's being not an African immigrant but is a Nigerian who is an Africa what in America what when for the thing I saw that they love to live in America part of the year party totally clear though because we have tools i living right alone mm-hm right so I think and I think it's important because I do think that it's a perspective that it gives me and I and I think my if I were my I lived my entire life in the US and I supported myself as an immigrant I think maybe I would see things slightly differently I think there's also the kind of when I'm back home and because I spent back on labels not nice to him you kind of look when I mean Labor's I look at the u.s. in a different way and there's a kind of distance that it affords me and I think it's a similar I mean the years elephant major in a different way and and I think it shifts the it shoots the way that I I think about this thing I mean so one of the reasons that I bristled when I read Trevor's piece in The New York Times was because it made me think that we were sort of doing this boolean eyes let's all get it felt and I and I respect the sentiment behind it right had to do that kind of a night and also respected it really but I just think to me put it in context right so so that the American president King made himself relevant actually before he started running for president let's remember that he made himself relevant by mounting this utterly racist campaign called Becker ISM which really was just simply a racist campaign to legitimize America's first black president that's how he made himself relevant and then he runs forces and in that running and in the campaign he manages to speak about women in the most urban horrendously talk about immigrants and just simplistic dehumanizing ways and it just seems to me all that he wins and suddenly were being told them you know try and understand him let's heal let's look and I just don't know that we shouldn't be because I something about it but but also just seemed to me unjust right that people who humanity had been questioned was suddenly being told now it's your job to a understand this man and be give him a chance see and I just thought no and one of the wonderful just to be clear though I wasn't that no you were just so you know no you're sorry no you are talking about me oh no it's not a force majeure on the same page no no no those are just in the you know I mean I hear what you said with my and I think it's changed a bit I mean my my I wrote my piece I'm going to be two weeks right 39 and it seems to me that sort of the American media and people with people who are talking about it just won't show what the hell to do and to say because I think most people didn't think he would win and in many ways neither did he so there was a nothing but increasing there was kind of research on what what the hell are we supposed to do about this and suddenly you know what the kind of talk that was coming out just really made me feel that this was not the way to blend one of the wonderful things I think about a democracy is that resistance in a democracy is a good thing right this friend is is is a wonderful thing and and I think it's happening now I mean I think that a hundred days in I see it I don't see that sense of them I don't see a lot of what I found myself reacting to when I wrote that piece I live in Maryland and and just in a small community where I live all of you sort of small political meetings happening in people's home you know I could be invited to them you know come and let's talk about the comp the Republican Congress person that we're going to an sleep you know people are just really and that think what a democracy should be and there many people in this country who haven't been active in anywhere who has become active and I think it's a response to in some ways the kind of response that we should happen from day one but of course it's America right you refer to clothing the little curdled layers of barber I think it's in sorry if I may interject it I think essentially maybe maybe that's where my response comes from is that I on The Daily Show I'm really blessed to have a staff that comprises of a wide range of people different walks of life you know different backgrounds just a group of people who come together to help create this show and one thing that I like about that is it enables me to not just live in my space but in a tiny community that I'm a part of every single day and the one thing I noticed immediately after the election was a change I noticed a shift in people's perspective I noticed a shift in people's determination I noticed a physical change you know I remember one of my female writers turned to me and she said I feel like my country has betrayed him and she looked at me and she said now we changed now writes this show changes and I said yes because now we have a purpose and so for myself that purpose changed when I started on the show people were like why aren't you angry I said what am i angry at please explain this to me I said I do not just have anger to throw around what am i angry at I will not fake outrage because there are many things that I don't believe outrageous especially American lives and besides so if one side the other side has to be outrageous outside of us I has to but I go why you outgrow each other tell me why because and then half of the time you can find that the other side did it ten years previously when they're administering so I try to throw all of that away I go get rid of that frivolity what are you outraged about what should you be angry about and those are the moments where I feel as a human being that is worth getting worked up and having the energy but what I noticed in my staffing and myself and the people was a galvanizing of a spirit and so when I wrote the piece I went if this can happen in my tiny world then this can happen in the larger world that I live in which is the United States of America and so it is an optimism because I go a guy like Donald Trump what he does is he makes you wake up he made you he fight he makes you find the best in yourself and sometimes you can't find that until you are pressed you know it's the reason when a person works out they have to push themselves that's when growth happens is when you're outside of your comfort zone and so it hasn't been working out so and so essentially I go like Donald Trump is now put his now put America and the world and the world out of its comfort zone you know don't forget before Donald from China was like a global warming climate change man Donald Trump came and said okay okay it's real life when I fight all of a sudden President Xi was leading the charge you never even came to these climate agreements beforehand this is a nation like before that people like will see what we now Nations standing up in the world Amsterdam I mean the Netherlands saying we're going to donate money to helping women around the world we're going to step up we're going to become something and sometimes it is that force that attacks you that will make you become the-best-version-of-yourself because otherwise you're just sit around you become complacent and so you serve like a personal trainer to the world here's a promise right based on his vast experience with personal trainers I'm sure um so come on you said a little interesting thing about about how being in two different places living in two different places gives you kind of perspective on the other place and it's interesting I think about the sort of trajectory of your fiction in particular like you wrote novels that took place entirely in Nigeria and then with Americana you wrote a novel that takes place all over the world that partly a function of your sort of living in different parts of the world having more experience and more I got to be more conversant with I mean it's easy to write about places that you'll be to write when I wrote and also because it just seemed it's very hard for me so in talking about fiction it's very hard for me to intellectualize choices and things because the half the time I don't actually know right right so I think that make Americana the story called me just felt I wanted to write about I would have tried something the present order to write to the present I wanted to write as contemporary thing about love obviously but also it's the kind of African immigration that I'm familiar with because I feel that but the narrative that is common in in the Western world but African immigrants is that they're clean poverty and war and catastrophe and obviously those stories are important but it never feels familiar to me because it's not the story I know and I wanted to write about the people who are not dying who haven't been caught up in any way but who who are dreaming of more and for whom more is America actually I don't know but at least we see and and and also that that story of the African who in his or her country you know isn't hungry as well probably but has a job what makes a choice makes a choice to leave and you know suddenly is washing toilets in London and and and what that is and how it shifts who you are your relationship with you or your appear like that just I wanted to try and capture that look at it's very familiar to me it so stereo of the people like no one loved and it came obviously from so being familiar with that because I've lived in this country for for quite a few years often on and I've spent time in England and I have family in England so it was the research part was fairly easy actually my sister-in-law who has a very sharp mouth she said to me next time if you want to write about us just use a real name I was like what so ever how about four you know you actually started your career in in South Africa all right and you became a star in South Africa but then you became star in other parts all around the world and now you're here how does that change your storytelling as a comedian well I think every every country has a flavor to it every country has an idea and a theme that almost dictates what the country you know defines itself as and so traveling the world one thing that I was I was always blessed with is when I traveled as simple as it sounds I just learned more of myself because I always knew myself in my world I always knew what ideas I had in my world and only when those ideas were tested or applied in different places did I come to change or modify them did I come to see places and people and ideas it's a totally different thing you know first traveling the Commonwealth and seeing the similarities you know of the British Empire as it as it was and then going to country that had no history that was tied to to to mind you know in a direct way coming to the u.s. though was was a strange experience because it's a weirdly familiar place for me because it's it feels sort of like home but not you know it's like it American South Africa almost like parallel universes it's like it's like a an episode of black mirror way it could have been but if you think so you know South Africa a country where black people were oppressed America country black people were and still are oppressed and then you look at the the shift but the difference was in South Africa black people were the ones who then assumed power and now that didn't shift everything overnight I mean we're still struggling with the effects of poverty and those things may take generations to fix and now there's new issues like corruption etc that come up but it was a different journey and it is a different journey and then you come to the US and it's very similar but then the people and the numbers who are being oppressed changes and that changes your perspective of how you see yourself and how you see the world and you know I was lucky enough that I came from a place where when I left South Africa to come and live in the u.s. I had experienced blackness in all its forms in terms of like you know black didn't just mean one thing to me so black had no connotation per se I went black can be ladylike and be on time you know we go here go nowhere in the world leg long time because I South Africa in South Africa table and so I went you know I went black and before black can be rich I went black can be a criminal black can be the judge like and so I was lucky in that when when I left and that's something I feel sad for a lot of South Africans who fled the country you know because they feared you know what was going to happen to them post post apartheid but they never got to see that so many people just go oh I have one image of black people and that's it but I I left with it and I came to America and then I realized very quickly had to shift how people saw black people how I was perceived how I was perceiving what I thought I was perceiving and that shift in my world changed it was the same when I went to when I went to the UK seeing how black people associated with everyone else in the UK and and realizing that classism is at times more powerful than race but race is still a huge factor there and then you come to the US and it becomes like the race is really one of the biggest things you know even even with money it still becomes one of the biggest things and so that journey for me was one that I think that's a lot of the facts that I that I always used to have in my mind in terms of thinking of ideas I went a lot of these ideas are learned because they come from a place a lot of these ideas and rules are fixed because they're fixed in one place but you travel from one country to another you realize what is offensive there's not offensive here you realize what is seen as a person here is not oppressive there you realize but then you see once you cut away the fat you see the truth of everything you start to realize more and more of the connective tissues and then I was in a space was like oh okay this I'd know from South Africa this could even be a precursor to what may happen in America and that's why from the beginning I said I think Donald Trump can win it you know I he was he was all too familiar for me I saw this man on TV and I went he's charismatic whether you like him or hate him he knows how to command the camera and Hillary was someone who in her own words in attention she's a horrible politician in that way and America loves entertainment and loves you know the show of it all and I came from a country where leaders are still charismatic and they connect to the people and then my one president who was kicked out was someone who was a policy wonk and didn't connect with the people and he was just focused on doing the job and not the show around the job and so that piece of traveling shaped how I saw the world so for instance when I saw that I went oh wow oh you guys aren't probably and people said are you being stupid this is what happens to us every year it's silly summer we calm down and then we get you know we make our minds up in the winter and I had that that thing there is nothing is going to do well like it I can see how it can connect and over time I guess you know people sort of came around to what I was saying but in the end I think my travels shaped and still shaped the way I see the world it's interesting when I'm I remember I thought Ataman are you speaking fantastic code in Washington a couple of months ago and and one of the things that uh nasan I've actually talked about many times about one things we love about Americana is that it does feel like it's a book that has a element of sort of pan-africanism about it because it takes these different parts of the earth the Diaspora particularly America and in Nigeria and it shows that both like places where they connect in the most magical way and in places where they are each kind of observing each other from so do you believe that there is like based just on your experience living in Africa living here that there is some kind of a pan-african unity that exists between cultures throughout the Diaspora yes I do I mean I do I think I mean I'm very curious about black people being on time Jeff and I will talk about it later but I think if you don't have one of the things I've observed in traveling and just observing I feel as though like this and again when you're looking at it historically 100 years lilies are that long and I ask you african-american history didn't start on a slave ship it started in Africa and black people in in the Caribbean are people of Africa black people in Brazil are people of Africa black people in Europe and you know and it's not just about skin color means that I believe very strongly that the cultural traditions that have been passed down have been diluted as they should be but but the things they're the the strands were the things there and at my I think of myself politically as an African it's sort of my political world view it's quite from African and what that mean I don't really know it just means that I care about what's happening in Kenya and I care about what's happening in you know I I care about what's happening to people in the by a region of Brazil I'm interested I mean you said in the way that certain Yoruba traditions have survived in Brazil and I'm interested in in you know afro-colombians and I'm interested and I think I'm interested because there's a familiarity there is something that that I still connected to I don't think my I mean it's nice to think of American as an African and I don't know that I necessarily thought no one thought I shall now write it in African too but me but because my walls were in Africa now it doesn't it doesn't surprise me that it is it's the way it's a but for me that the winds about the ways in which we connect herbalism which we don't connect for me coming here and I've talked about this often about discovering that I was black when I came to the US and in some ways I think picture but I have such different experiences because we grew up in such different parts of Africa the South Africa is removed possibly can be from Nigeria I think growing up in South Africa and in some ways in southern Africa is to be aware of race as a present reality in your life to grow up in West Africa particularly Anglophone West Africa is to be completely oblivious of risk very much aware of ethnicity and religion but race and so I still have friends in Nigeria when they talk about race I cringe because and I do because obviously there's something in me that has become Americanized I've understood race as America understands reason and I also think that that's a different understanding of reason that there's a particular thing about the way America looks at reason I should also me to clarify that usually in this case I'm talking about blackness because again obviously the different mix isn't I just like terms of repression in this country and and I don't want to go into rant about my problems with the American image but often there's a need to have a sort of United League of their prayers and I think it's a very dishonest way of having conversations because I think that people experience oppression in different ways so I'm talking about black men I just want to clarify right and because you know panics have a passion it's a different it's different you know Asian Americans never mind that minority and model minority Singh also experienced oppression right and but so in talking about blackness and I came to the US I discovered I was black and it was a kind of strange thing because you know with the sort of casual arrogance that most Nigerians are bred with by the Nigerians here know this is true lesbian I believe we were only using the victims this is what I mean right which was like yeah and friend so I remember to the coming here and my first and it's a very small moment but I was in class it was like my first the first essay we were under grad the professor comes in this is sort of when I don't like physical papers are still things that people bring to class but is like cool wrote an essay this is the best essay and I want to know who wrote it and I raise my hand surprised another very small fleeting moment but that's when I realized he didn't think the person who wrote this essay was black and and with my Nigerian sort of answers like you know does he not know Nigerian and there were all brilliant in my dream but really I mean no but but really but but just to say that it was kind of a learning thing and then I went through this process of wanting to run away from that label and I recognized now but one with more labels how black men wear I would say I'm not black in a Nigerian hmm I did this for maybe a year of my time in the US and I look in but now I recognize it and in some ways even that my reaction is an indictment of American racism because obviously I'm black but because I realized that America's understanding of black we saluted with negativity I thought no I don't want to you know I don't know huh and I remember when people say oh come to Black Student Union of Lego I will be going to the library you know but then I started to read and and it's important to talk about it because it's so important I mean especially as we're now in this age of alternative facts but it's so important to read I mean but the fact of American history if there's no way I think that any open-minded person can read the facts of American history and just not have knowledge that the massive amended injustice of blackness in this country and so I need and it was a political choice to take on the label of blood like I'm very happily black and and I like to talk about how I lived in Brooklyn for if you want to neck first came here and was an ask an American man who once called me a sister this was a very Elia more not less than and my sister I was like I know I know but but you know I talk about it only thing many people do this I don't talk about the right I mean I think that the black immigrants in this country but there is that path I mean I do think of it as necessarily an indictment of them it's about it's about this country I mean it's it's that immigrants come here they want to survive they want to do well they absorb that terrible negative stereotypes not really armed with facts we haven't really been history many of them having been educated here and they just kind of buy into it so like no I'm not your sister and so after I had done a bit of reading I just felt so ashamed I wanted to find him and be like I am so like my big me my but but yeah Trevor did you have the same I mean it's somewhat different way discovery or shift in like how you felt racially identified when you came here well here I was lucky in that a I mean it's a weird thing to be to say you're lucky with but in South Africa because of that oppression I was used to that idea I was used to a label I was used to knowing that I am below I was used to having or suffering from a racial low self-esteem which is something that many many South Africans have had and still have so for instance you know in South Africa it's a common thing and I know there's some parts of Africa that have this depending on the history but like in South Africa if you would drive a nice car you know into a you know a gas station or petrol station you know the attendant may say to you I'm Lulu you know which means out the white man you know and and that basically would imply look at you you're doing well you have achieved whiteness you know look at you things are going well and so white goes well black does not you know and so when something would be negative it would just be something that people would say as a throwaway thing it would be like a Monday which is just like oh you know what like black people like what are you gonna say and I didn't realize this was a thing you don't realize that you have a stigma of your supper until you you read until you until you tackle it and so the one thing that that we had was as I said earlier the level so we may as much as you have the stigma un yeah but I can aspire to that level of the whiteness I can live in the white area I can drive the white man's car speak the language like the white man because for so long that determined your success in South Africa you know in many ways it still does for some people and so I always it's funny I had Nigerian friends in South Africa and I remember I met them because there's an influx that came in and stayed you know then when I stayed in Hill bro a stranger loved Nigerians and I was always shocked at how confident Nigerians were he watched Nigeria movies with my Nigerian friends and I was like these things are horrible like why why on genetic Hollywood movies and I remember my friend returns to be you know my favorite turn to me and and you do say to me say what what car what can i watch that movie my favorite thing used to say because it would be it would like be like a white actress on screen and I forget how he said it exactly but he used to say something along the lines of he be like that did that lady can't do nothing from you and and I didn't understand it but he was like no I watch our movies and our stories and our music is what we celebrate and I had never seen this like what but in my world you aspire to the English in my world you aspire to to that thing and so when I came to America it wasn't learning that I was black it was it was rather coming into a space where I realized it was like the bridging of the gap so if Nigerians have excessive confidence and we saw that we had this pick for let's not image it but I mean but I mean if you and then you know South Africans have a slightly diminished one I remember when I came to the US I was shocked at how some of the things that I have spired to who were frowned upon in some places I remember when I first did comedy it was a really great comedian still a friend of mine in in LA and I did a show and I did a show with an all-black comedy shows called chocolate sundaes and they asked me to come on and they were like and I mean the introduction was just like it was a yo man Amy we got this brother from South Africa yo don't you we fall away here may yo do we got showing some love we got to do and I was like wow this is they were but the guy was really really enough you know and I and I walked on stage and the people looked at me like I was not gonna introduce the guy from Africa and I started speaking and I'll never forget us no one loved no one loved they just stared at me there was one person laughing in the balcony was Katt Williams I'll never forget it Katt Williams and he was the only person who was laughing at my jokes and I got off the stage and I was like well that is that was the most horrible experience ever and the host thought back on and then I guess he voiced the feeling of the audience and he turned and he was like a man's like yo hang on front he's I know they got yellow bones and I and he's like [ __ ] he's like that [ __ ] came on say you know he was talking like the Queen because I go good evening but he's like yo where the [ __ ] was Mutombo man well cause I think I was like wait what what do you and I'm like what do you and I understood and I was like oh wow this is that thing and you know what and I initially my my my pride and and do you know a certain a certain amount of your fear goes like a why I will be more of this I will show you that this is the thing and I did a show a friend of mine Chris Spence I'll never forget after the show was a good show but he came up to me and he said to me he said Amen I like that you play black grooms cuz a lot of comedians that do the mainstream rooms in America don't do the black rooms and he said but just be careful of one thing because people don't know you they might see you as an uppity [ __ ] and I said what does that mean and he said and he said this was maybe what six years ago and he said to me be careful that some people may perceive you as being someone who does not want to be associated with black because of how you speak because of how you dress because of how they see you and I in that moment I like what what what is what does that mean what is that and he's like all the way the way you use your words and the way you know that's that's not seen for some people as a black thing and that's when I came to realize that a lot of the negative stereotypes it's very familiar to me because we've done in South Africa and it's done in the US is that black people and I don't know if it's in you know the pursuit of above of really forming a buttress of your culture and your mind have unfortunately absorbed some of the negative elements that have just been associated with blackness because of its oppression and so now people go yeah being ignorant is black you know spending my money the way I spend it is black you know you know whether it's baby mama jokes whether it's like these are things that are black these are things that are part of my blackness as opposed to going know there is this culture that we all experience there is a culture of who we are and then there are incidental things that have been imposed on us because of our skin because of our culture because of our heritage and because it's happened for so long we've come to believe that that is a part of who we are and I still have to work to shake that every day you know and I see it in my friends and it's something that we work to shake every day but I go no actually that is not something that I'm proud of and you won't you won't get that out of you know and people go stop acting white and I go what are you saying what do you mean by stop acting whites why like why are you giving that to white people that's a positive thing it's not they don't own it you're not insane right that's not their thing so don't be tricked into owning the legacy and that's I mean that's essentially what I discovered when I got here but I it was a realization because I had a bit of it in South Africa and then it was it was a even bigger awakening when I came to to the u.s. I mean if I mad one real quick thing was I guess the biggest awakening for me was it wasn't in a negative way it was rather the other and that is I've always loved celebrating different cultures because South Africa is really such a melting pot and you know whether it was my Geryon my Nigerian friends or whether was my Zimbabwean friends or even in South Africa cos of Zulu on a baby Afrikaans whatever it was week I was enjoying that and I'll never forget when I did shows in America and because I formed my comedy in black rooms that was what I was I was working with and that's what I enjoyed and I'll never forget the first time I took it out of a black room and I went to a white audience and I did the same jokes and it destroyed but even bigger and in a strange way and I didn't understand why or why what was happening or you know and it took me too long in my opinion I mean it's a short amount of time in life but took me too long to realize that in the black room we were laughing at our thing when I went to the white room I was giving them the license to laugh at the black thing and I honestly didn't realize it you know I I used to make jokes about you know names like you know Shaniqua and and you know and like I was like it's funny it's funny I mean it's the same way back home our T's my cousin know my Tom Stanga and I always tease her you know I'm just like I'd call her rice krispies because I was like this always popping sounds and but but she'd take that in a it was just like because of your name specifically my mom doesn't have tech sounds in her name it but when I realized that I was like oh wow there are so many levels here and I have to be careful now of what I share we're right because we're you give it away may create a completely different connotation of what you're giving away man so now that's it that's a really good point and I wanted there for both of you and I think this is one of the interesting things about artists like both of you who have global audiences right why this is a treble we should record that and send it to all the white people who say well black people say that everything exactly so now as a writer and performer and writer who who speak to these multiple audiences do you feel like you in some ways have to be aware of audience when you're writing about about different cultures do you feel in some ways like there is a that you're speaking for a group of people do you feel like you're having to maybe even strip with you which you write for export so to speak so that people everywhere you know get known and in particularly in fiction know when I'm writing nonfiction it's very different it's a very different creative process with nonfiction you know if I write essays right I generally know what I thought well I suppose I'd like to think I know and so so in some ways I'm aware of 40 and I mean obviously when I wrote that teaching in New York I knew that I was writing for primarily American audience something most Nigerians and really just really whatever we take a bronzy that she the right nobody else is talking about me but with fiction I do it and because fiction is the thing I love and what I think of as my life vacation I I don't and in some ways it's become something that I'm increasingly conscious of not doing in other words because I'm aware of if it's a strange thing of being fortunate to be read but also it's coming with its baggage and some of the baggage is saying to myself I don't ever want to get to the point where the storytelling that I do is shaped by any other consideration that it's not my artistic vision I don't have to get that I mean I have a pact with my dear friend being a banker why Nayla I said to him when I start writing that kill me and he said yes evil so maybe but but in general no I do it and I think you know I think the second integrity of the story is very important and so you know I want to tell my story the way it is and I know that in for example the way that I threw in a more wood is my in my fiction I have had many editors who thing that maybe turn it down were taken out you know his name that are simpler for Americans and I just think no because I grew up reading books that in Russia with long names I couldn't pronounce it didn't get in the way of my connecting with the character and I take that all the time with me that there's a sense in which literature is a universal language because it is specific right and so I and maybe that's why I'm sometimes I'm just really surprised that people in Japan are reading me like when you're sitting lovely but there's a part of me that I think really and I really hope they guess it's right but apparently it mean maybe it's um and maybe for me it's also proof that you don't have to that you know that but especially with fiction I I think and as a reader I know that the books are drawn to and the books that are very steep in their specificity in the books but that don't sort of carry around many very ideas of universal I mean that I'm always very troubled when people start to say over your universal and I start worrying because Universal I can often mean that you've stripped your walk of the things that really make it so so you know my I mean I had somebody who very kindly suggested for example that since I had become well known in America it might be a good idea not to use the difficult maybe my most recent book my book is called va-jay-jay well it's a name that difficult even for Nigerian you know but in turn a my love and like look that's the name were using right I mean does it mean something nice question I won't buy it because the name is scary maybe but I can live with that [Applause] antara how do you feel about that do you feel like there's a there's a degree to which you what do you feel like you have to go to the specific to reach the broadest audiences even in South Africa's but the view you performed in front of audiences entire times right I I think as a comedian you always conscious of your audience what happened though was I guess through the internet and world accessing me before I even knew it had my specificity came to become what I was talking about all the time and so you know what I agree no I agree with what you're saying in that you shouldn't try to be global if that makes sense but I go but who you are is who you are so I would argue a ceremony you are global because of who you are you know what I mean you don't have to try and there's some people who are trying to be global which is why they lose it but if everyone connects with your story with many people do your global whether you like it or not you know it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that you are I understand people run away from being like oh that means I'm stripped or commercial I get that now I'm not oh I have to say I'm actually not Precious about I would love to become myself saying how cool there's no evil personality love the word commercial I'm perfectly happy with it but I know what I'm saying when it comes to being global I go like no but that's that's who I am so I I go I'm Trevor Noah who grew up in South Africa I go I had the opportunity to go to a school that was at the point white and then changed and then we were the first group of mixed children who allowed into the school so I'm shaped by a piece of that I have access to a world that maybe some of people don't but that is a piece of me now the same thing with my mother my mother has a grasp of languages that she then bequeathed upon me and now I I do and I try to mirror what she did but that is a piece of me and then that you know having a father from Switzerland who is white that shaped a piece of me and then having a stepfather who was black and shaped a piece so everything connected so then I go that is my specificity is that I am and you know in some way connected to everything and everyone and it's also because I come from a country where that was the thing we you know we were all corralled into that group and so what happens then is the people mix up the ideas we our languages grew our our our our our forms of communication are so interlinked in South Africa that we've created languages upon languages you know with with it within themselves and so when I tell stories I don't write fiction but fold for the book as you know the editor the specificity was exactly what I was going for because I've always believed that the specificity is what's global I think it's the other way around I almost go like that is like the real thing that everyone connects with I was listening to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers when I was a little kid because my mom would play the music at no point did I say to myself were these who are these white people singing I didn't even know that they were white I just heard the music and it was loved and they were singing a story and my mother was singing it and so I was hearing it and I was singing it with her and she was connecting with certain things maybe she wouldn't have connected with a song that was about Texas but he connected with the specificity of someone falling in love and that story that was being told and so so when I tell these stories I I think of the audience the way I think of my friends I go how would I share this with you what do I want to tell you what do I feel I need to share with you to give you a glimpse into who I am or how I think and I know with my friends I my most vulnerable and at the same time I'm also the most willing to learn and share I'm in a space where they get my friends get the best of me and so with every audience whether it's on stage or whether it's in a book I go I will think of you as that person and give you the best of me and the worst of me as well because if I if I do that and you accept me if you accept me for the worst of me then we have a great friendship ahead of us and if you don't accept me because of the worst of me then we shouldn't have been friends to begin with and so that's that's what I pursue all of the time and I say I've been lucky enough that my specificity is that I've been touched by everything and everyone in my world and that's what I try and talk about without forcing it I do think learning is listening to that one of the things I've kind of discovered in in the publishing world and you of course an esteemed member of away is that there's also a lot that if power and privilege have a lot to do the kind of breed a kind of entitlement for people who belong to group that are powerful who then think that only the stories are universal and who are surprised when so I for example have often heard from people who seem genuinely surprised that they connected with my character and when I was growing up reading in enlighten it never occurred to me not to connect with our characters because I didn't grow up in a certain kind of entitlement that only that my world was was kind of the only world allowed to be universal and I've also heard from some men but less than who also say that they surprised than you know I mean like have we never saw and I kind of surprisingly like you know a woman with the book and so and just to be just to say that there is that as well I think and I think it's something that is important to talk about particularly for young writer starting out I think that young writers were from not just parts of the wall but group that are on the margins often told that in the right thing they have to sort of give the reader some form of entry which often means a kind of turning down of the specificity because and as a reader when I read some of the stories I can tell I can tell that someone's been meddling right and there's something about there's a sadness to it for me and something that increasingly I think about because and we still don't live in a world I don't think where there's just that natural assumption that F is everybody's story much as equally we still don't yeah I was about just read just real quick off that one thing that I do think is important though is to acknowledge that sometimes you can clarify or try and help the story connect with someone without losing some of that specificity and maybe that's because I come from a world where we have 11 official languages in South Africa my life I grew up with translators it's the only world I know and this was even in the black community we would go to church and there would be three pastas on stage and they would all be preaching the same word and they were basically you know whoever's the main pasta the other two would translate what the person was saying so the first one would start and say Jesus loves all of you the next one says who Jesu grant I dunno I'm gay and the next one say Buddha more cooler radical fella and it's like you were like alright pick up on that foredeck I said I pick up on that but now I understood all of the languages so I just heard the sermon three but but what I found was very saying the same yeah definitely and but what I found was I was like oh there are ways where you can use language and you can use little stories that help you connect and and identify with my specificity I don't need to pander to you but it's the reason we use language you know it's the reason you can choose to write a book in a language the reason you can choose to have a movie with subtitles or a movie that is dubbed you can you can choose how you want to tell that story and so I find in that I think maybe that is what I consider is I say if you can completely not understand the story if it does not connect you in any way because of not an idea but rather a word that maybe won't be a name like just a thing that doesn't exist in your world it's hard for me to just carry on from that I would rather now just give you that little bit of knowledge and go this is what this this is what this is this is what we use it for and now you just have that thing and I go if you if you if you know it now you know it and then we can move on from there but I just tell you hey in South Africa so Mopani worms for instance I'm just going to tell you what a Mopani worm is if I say to you growing up in so that because you're assuming that your reader is not South Africa yes right but but no no even maybe it's because even in South Africa there many people who don't know what Mopani worms are but I think also means and that's for fiction I just wouldn't leave our teaching a class I wouldn't I would not at all recommend my students do that because I also think that the often it's about a failure of technique I think that their ways in which you use something in the story and a discerning redundance what it says or has a general sense of what it is without being told I mean there's a part of me that just deeply resents the fact that there many parts of the world where the fiction that comes from there is read as anthropology rather than as literature and increasingly that kind of you know the kind of anthropological readings then means that you see something you explain you're explaining your world rather than inhabit in your world and and there's a part of me that just really but can we talk about trebles mother alright and on that note I'm special Travers matter victus he's a miserable woman indeed oh my goodness i I want to meet her I'm in awe of Hyderabad seriously I just think you're so fortunate I read his book and I was so moved and I have to tell you the particular part something I felt so powerful is when she said I chose to have you and me I mean her story and I really owe the funds that she is this you know in many ways ordinary black South African woman who finds something in herself is just incredible extraordinary beautiful personal humane choices in her life and who decides you want to have a child I mean I remember the givers not there's nothing more beautiful to say about the act of of the production than that I used to have you and and he hopes excuse me have to drink my feminist party there's nothing more beautifully feminist than that it wasn't what is more beautiful than a child he's so wanted right and and of course again I need to bring in my politics me we should have everybody who wants to force people to have fun want to carry out wanted pregnancies we should have them read trebles book because no because I do it later I don't get it because because I hear of a woman of a woman making a choice I mean that's really what it says like I choose to have you and I found her it's remarkable on so many levels I was there I am and I just I think you're very fortunate thank you very much Virginia all right thank you so much Amanda and thank both of you very much for having this conversation with us ignite a lot and coming out so early [Applause]

Channel: PEN America

Views: 21,877

Rating: 4.9083967 out of 5

Keywords: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Trevor Noah, Chris Jackson

Id: yiX5XvykVSk

Length: 69min 20sec (4160 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017