Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in conversation with Damian Woetzel

please welcome Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I think that's okay on this one that's okay sometimes they arrange the mics that it's one side of the other let's see how they do said oh is that good can you hear it yes can you hear us now so I was just telling that you met with students already here and we've known each other for all of about an hour plus a 5-minute call and her first words to me really her first real words to me were what is expected of me in the workshop which I just loved because it was so utterly serious she knew she was going to be meeting with some students and she wanted to make sure that you know in spite of all of these expectations about the work that there was doesn't be this responsibility and I loved that and then in fact we met with them and there's some of them are still here so my thinking is that the questions ranged from craft like how do you yeah and what limits you what doesn't limit you nonfiction versus fiction and then it also ranged to identity immediately with one of the young women who's from Ghana who's been here since she was 12 and she's looking at her role where she is and it's very practical you asked a very practical question you said do you have a u.s. passport and you don't yourself I don't tell us about that well I have a Nigerian passport and well first of all thank you all for being here so just lovely this is such a nice space and I'm very happy to be here in particular because and I'm happy to be doing this with Damien because I think he has the coolest hair in the world and we plan to talk about his hair soon this was not on mining us a crime learning the minute I saw he was like but no I think I I don't have a heaven I have lived in the u.s. often on since 1997 and I've had many opportunities sooo to get an American passport and I chose not to because I felt in a slightly misguided way that I wanted to somehow be authentically Nigerian which meant that I would travel only with a Nigerian passport and I will therefore be forced to go through the various indignities that attend Nigerian passport such as having difficulty getting visas to various countries being harassed at various airports been asked to step aside special questioning it's interesting I watch people's faces and the minute I present that green Nigerian passport something happens to the faces of immigration officials there's a mask of distrust because Nigerian that's not good and sometimes when you go and I'm planning to go somewhere and I go to the website of the country and the other country's embassy and I'm looking at the requirements for a visa often there is a little bit at the end where it says if you're citizen of the following countries please expect a longer processing time Nigeria and Pakistan sure Afghanistan and yeah well actually I'm kind of thinking that I might finally apply for the rest I think I think I'm done with the self-righteous self pitying but it doesn't wait to clean my privilege diamond fellowship and and I music and you certainly deserve it but if it's going to get in the way of the writing you know no I don't think it will I think it collected enough material because I ought to feel like oh yeah like I'm the last time in actually just last week in I'm so sorry my brain is slow in Amsterdam and at the airport I mean I've had such in Copenhagen once this man looks at the passport looks at me why are you here I say I'm a writer he looks through have many visas I have a very thick passport because it's full of users and he kept saying to me are you sure you're a writer and I said yes you know I said I'm actually here because my books been published in Denmark and he and he said you step aside he he said where's your tickets your return ticket how long were you here for and just really absurd questions and then much later when you finally let me go on at this point I felt like a criminal because all these other people had sort of seen me in you know pressed oh yeah and my my my host in Copenhagen said oh I'm so sorry but he must have thought you were prostitutes because apparently there had been an influx of Nigerian sex workers into Copenhagen I suppose for him if you have an IGN password on your female that's where it came from yeah but you persevered did you have to demonstrate your writing I was actually worried that he might ask me to write but I did I don't think he's English wasn't very good so I don't think he would be in a position to know a good sentence from a bad word so is that kind of uncomfortable experience I mean it's it seems to Kona phrase a DJ ask in a way to take some remove from it perhaps yeah and you observe it might we expect variations on a theme that's ours because of the I mean what I think about it is now quite vivid imagination of you arriving the United States for school and having an engagement and Yetta and a writer sensibility of yeah if remove and I never get I always feel one step removed from but it's not to say that I'm not present in that sense I mean when this was happening in Copenhagen and when these other things happen there's a sense of humiliation there's anger and all of those things but at the same time the storyteller in me is watching is one step removed and is watching and and sometimes it's not so much that I become a character simply that I'm just able to observe I feel as though I just I go through life watching do you take notes I just say yes you do I do and I used to have a notebook now I do it on my phone you do yeah Wow so and so technique so so technology for you it's in no way an enemy in fact it's a it's a tool because you know there's there's certainly if you think about the idea of writing and yeah you've written short stories certainly but you write novels have heft and the technology is not sending our brains in that direction in general is that fair to say it is very fast to see and I'm just thinking about technology as my friend it's I have to pass that very carefully a book it's my friend in the sense that I love that I was just texting with family and friends in Nigeria just before I came on stage so that's nice but it's not my friend in the in the sense that the internet gets in the way of my right swing and it does because I let's it okay so I sit then I'm thinking I'm really hoping I can write a page of what I like but instead I decide to go and look up and see what Lupita Nyong'o was wearing and then from there just go it's touches capes cow I think the women here are laughing as they do that like by let's take a look pizza besides my lisa's crush but the internet can be and sometimes even just sort of research so I think all right I want to look something up for example or when I was writing Americana I would sometimes and I lived in most of the cities about which I wrote but sometimes I would just want to see pictures of Princeton for example and I would go online and I look I would look at pictures but then instead of going back to write I would suddenly think alright I'll just read you know something I'll started oh that was I Nassau Street or just that next thing you know you're going down yeah your shed and by the time you're done we stood for hours nothing and I say and that whole idea of switching of the internet I don't know if I can do it so the internet it's a mixed message so next class area it could get in the way but let's go back for a second to that you know the one step removed when you talked with the students earlier you described the differences between your nonfiction writing and your fiction writing which I thought was really interesting and was just saying on the fiction for a moment you found it sounded to me almost like you get possessed to some extent while you're writing fiction yeah there's a free space for you I like to engage in argument yeah between the characters and some of them have you and we talked a little bit about Americana you know whether you are how much is you familiar and how much is oh bins and all of that so you get you get transported in a way in that and is that is that why you do it is that what started is that how it started huh I really like the idea of being possessed I'll keep that in mind how is that how it started I suppose so I don't know I don't remember when I wasn't interested in storytelling yeah I don't remember when she died when I was you know I my earliest memories are of my writing and reading but and of my finding immense joy in doing both and being the child who was perfectly happy when other kids were out playing and and I also I didn't I had a very it's interesting actually because I think the general idea of writers especially writers who start out young is that they are loners and that you know they don't have friends and books are their friends and that kind of thing I had many friends I was actually quite a social child but at the same time I was just always drawn to the storytelling it and also to listening to people's stories not just to reading books but even the stories of my friends and what their mother had said and I was very interested I mean you cannot you can call it not minding your business right that's another way of pissing it really but I was always very interested and and when I was very young I remember when I was ten example sitting in my father's study and writing a short story made me happy I didn't necessarily want to go and do fun things with the kids I it made me happy and um and it's hard for me to talk about where I came from it's just it was always there yeah and was it immediately recognized I mean you're your father's and academic yeah that's it I think so yes I think so because I remember my parents my parents are yes my father is an academic my mother was a university administrator and both of them they indulged me I think I was the child who was a little strange and they and the fifth of six and and the expectation was that you would become as a scientist of some sort because you know you do well in school you have to be a doctor or an engineer and my parents had kids who were done well my sister is a doctor my brother is an engineer my sister is a pharmacist I think with me they just sort of thought she's a little strange and we'll just let her be let her find her way yeah yeah so they would buy me exercise books so I would I don't know if Americans know what exercise so what they would call her I guess a notebook but those are was colonized by the British we call these exercise books so my parents would buy these books for me for my write sake and I would fill these books up with stories on my parents my mother would read some of them and they sort of I think they just thought I don't know if they thought maybe she'll get over this I don't know but they just kind of let me do my thing they did yeah so it wasn't yeah our daughter is going to be a writer no it was our daughter rights were buying had these exercise books sometimes our friends come and we say to them look she wrote this in a week but she's going to be a doctor of course and the expectations that parents have it must be something that you you see a lot of certainly you know whether in the United States context or Nigeria or all around yeah how did you feel I mean it obviously it worked for you to be allowed to find your way and it it's an interesting thing because when we spoke earlier backstage a little bit about how one finds what one does and it's very natural in the best in the best cases but it's a natural process but that can be reward based too it's like oh this is working is good yes and your it sounds like what you're recalling in very idyllic way is happiness yes and that's what's better than that yes joy joy from this yes now how does that contrast with when did you first write any nonfiction I wrote nonfiction I don't know I was always I fiction is my first love my really my real love because it but it's not fiction that it's not fantastical fiction I was never the child who was very keen on Lord of the Rings you know my brother read Lord of the Rings I didn't have patience for cognate sand things I actually another thing we have in common really absolute to note is that I just I know I actually made it through the Hobbit it was the bigger once it is just through my brother I would read these things and I would just think I just didn't have the patience I wanted to read about people's lives I wondered too I think as a child owes very much a world was a vast wall and I wanted to learn about it and and so in in writing fiction I wanted to say that I'm there's a part of me that just cannot help but make things up right which is really where we're seeing in some ways I'm a bit of an accomplished liar but that's what all fiction writers are but but it's a kind of lying that is caged in truth that's what I think of fiction is but nonfiction I started writing really recently I write essays sometimes I've done a few shot more pieces it's very different for me because I find that I censor myself I protect myself I am very much aware of my audience I'm very present in my ego is present when I write nonfiction I want to I'm very much aware of myself as a character I want to be trying to do something with it generally yes yes usually yes there's like a point and it's just to create a yes a stance or to have a stance which open up questions I'm thinking about the editorial about the the baby on the plane mmm I did yes that was uh yes was just recently two months ago yeah but yeah yeah and the shock at the end of this I don't know how many of you've read this but it's wonderful you should look it up it's about being on a flight where a baby's born and the flight is diverted to the Senegal right yes it was a flight from Leah goes to Atlanta and and this woman had a baby and we ended up being diverted to Dakar and yeah and I remember I remember actually remembered watching that incident being very present but just really watching I felt a few steps removed I it's not so much as we're watching a film in which you're not door but it's I don't know how to explain it but when I wrote that piece I knew what I was doing I was very moved by what happened and I wanted to write about there's a certain kind of sadness of if you're born and you're from a particular part of the world it does something to your choices and your options merely by being born there and and for me there's a sadness to that and I think that the story of the of the birth and the plane illustrates that and I wanted to try and and hopefully get a reader to feel that by writing about it I think if I wrote fiction about it I wouldn't be consciously aware of what I was trying to do I would just hopefully be transported and hope that that the result would be worth reading so is that to say that so for fiction the goal is to create something worth reading is it or is it to make I mean because you make a lot of points in your fiction well right yeah Lee yes yes you do and yet you leave it open for argument yes that's yeah I think that's a fantastic way of putting it in my nonfiction I don't want to I want to think of all the arguments and counter them I want to write my fiction there is room in my nonfiction I come from the point of I kind of know in in fiction I'm like and this is what I kind of thinks about maybe not there's there is room in fiction and I think also I mean obviously I can't pretend that I write I write social realism and you know a human being I live in the world I'm sort of very politically aware and I have political positions I'm surely my fiction reflects that but it's not it's never intentional and that I just I'd like I will I don't know ya know there it's there but it's woven in yeah to a narrative which does all the things that's magnificent lies you said they take us places that let us have our imagination go as well let's talk a little bit about Americana so that's going to paperback now and it's under some notable awards and is in every sense of the word just a tremendous success and it's based on I thought and many have thought parts of you certainly in the why did you die as well there's some sort of market similarities but but you told me backstage that there's also quite a bit of oh bins hmm in you and that you admire her so there's a sense of she's acting out some things for you perhaps yes yep that's it that's really you just sold that that's it I love didn't take but to act out my issues and oh familiar it's interesting though because people many people have just assumed that she's me there which you know I mostly find amusing and sometimes I don't I don't really want to dissuade people because I don't really mind people thinking if Emma's pretty great she's even though you said you don't want on your life but we can talk about it say that entirely I said she's fascinating but it's there's a like I don't really think I want to in my life she you know if Emmylou when I started I didn't again inviting fiction I'm not very conscious of what I'm doing and actually was a friend of mine who said to me you know Obon says very much you and I started to think about it and I realized in many ways he is I think the the part of the beans there that watches and observes and dreams and mourns things so there's a lot of nostalgia yeah and I think I have a lot of that I have I have immense nostalgia I'm very familiar with mythology I'm not static about things I never knew this is true tastic yeah well I don't know I spent and there's a lot of that in Obion say what what I find familiar any family is when I had my family and I did very much want her to be a character who I suppose this is what I mean about my my political positions clearly come up there's a familiar there's a feminism about her I wanted a family to be to be a character who challenges all the ideas of what femininity should be so they're people who've said to me oh we didn't like her and which doesn't surprise me right I liked her but I think that if mlo had been male and been exactly as she was in the novel that the interpretation of the character will be very different and that we bring all of these gender expectations to even how we read and so if emily is the person in a relationship who who cheats and she doesn't cheat in the way that we expect we meant to cheat she doesn't cheat because the man hurt her abandoned her I didn't pay attention she cheated because she was curious right it's not and it doesn't matter how progressive we think we are women are not supposed to chief for those reasons when men do we sort of a man laughs right right but women unlocks and and there's also when I say I admire her it's that I admire and I think this is true in general for my lab but I admire women who are willing to live life on their own terms it sounds a bit cliche but really not to make a point but simply because that's the life they want to live and I think that the world often doesn't give women a room yeah you know - I'm thinking a lot about as you talk the scene which we come back to in the hair salon and the various women that come in and out of that scene and their their difficulties and their presumptions about each other and it's that's that's a wonderful kind of argument of a sort yeah which resolves that I'm speaking of it's interesting actually just thought about it now in some ways is it for me I realize now that there's something similar between the woman in the hair salon who in the end we hear her story but how she you know she can't go home and and the woman who has a baby on the plane what I felt about the woman in the hair salon is similar there's a kind of and it's not something you know it's it's different it's a kind of it's not the immigration that I'm necessarily familiar with because my version of immigration was slightly easier I had a visa I was documented I could go back to Nigeria all I needed to do was somehow find the money to buy it but it took it but they're people for whom that is not a choice on an option and yeah and there's something about it that I find very moving because yeah just the idea that people like me haven't necessarily ended it's just that idea of the accident of birth and randomness of it yeah yes which is essentially a sadness like yeah yeah there's a sadness to me but that that the hair salon I think that seems started when I was in the hair salon and I remember thinking this woman so here's what we talked about how much it's not so much that if Emily's means that the the hair salon the particular beginning I was actually the hair salon and some way in Maryland and this woman had a skin condition and I was struck by that because there was also something it was almost like art and I was but I found it repulsive and interesting and I remember as she was braiding my hair I was thinking it's very infectious and then she wouldn't stop talking she kept and then she starts telling me about her Nigerian boyfriend and then she starts she gets very suggestive and she's winking and she says he's very good I'm at this point at this point I'm thinking I want her to stop well it was just it was a very strange thing and and it made me think later about why did she I remember thinking if I had been an American she would not have told me those stories so so there was a kind of those an African nation as an intimacy that was never supposed yes it was an assumed intimacy and and I found it interesting and I remember thinking I'm going to write about this I'm going to use and I wrote it down you know I sort of wrote things down and when I started Americana it just seemed natural to start from then of course I added things and I played it wasn't quite like that as it is in the novel but that's really the germ of that and and for me then it became that that hair salon isn't just a hair salon it's it's so these African women and then many of these hair salons and they're usually francophone and it's fascinating how they become different versions of themselves and I watched them and and when their client is is another African that demeanor is different from when it's an American yeah and and you find that what immigration does to you what leaving home does to you is that it's like having different masks you put one on for a particular thing and you take it up and you put those costumes and it's that's a process of the assimilation yes I think I mean I think we all do it to an extent but when you're when you're when you leave home and go to a new place especially it please where you're sort of grateful to be there and you want to succeed then you follow the rules of what success means and yeah then you find your you find yourself acting chemxtech yeah becoming different visions of yourself so I'm going to move on very quickly because I have so many things I want to ask you ask you just be quicker are you telling me did you or did you not go and try and convince the Nigerian boyfriend to marry her because she does that no I don't mind up for that okay so there is a limit it's that's where that's yes stop it I didn't know that's good that's great let's talk about you know the seriousness of the power of your words which in my mind you know it's in the current moment you wrote three weeks ago I think an editorial in Nigeria fighting against the anti-homosexuality law which just passed in January and you're you the way you described a moment ago you try and take take apart any case that was against you and you point by point kind of tried to go through everything that could possibly be answered I mean first of all I think incredibly brave so just just say that nobly and as far away as Nigeria is from where we're sitting at this moment text messages notwithstanding you know we have not the same but issues going on here in Arizona for instance just last week or two weeks ago with anti-homosexual laws and discrimination yeah and what bronze you and I think white did you look andon used to do yesterday was it Kentucky yeah but sorry so so what brought you there to do it hmm I mean ugly just give you one less preface to that you begin the article by saying this is a popular law yeah in Nigeria a tough thing to say and to admit probably in some ways I guess it's popular here but I'm going to yeah and you're popular there with some people you know it came from and it's interesting actually thinking about juxtapose in the two popularities because some of the feedback that I've received about that about that article is people who in the name of meaning well tell me oh you shouldn't have done this because you're burning up your you know a Nigerian see you as a role model and you've done this and it's a disappointment and you're going to lose you you know and and for me it's it that doesn't matter because if I'm going to lose whoever I'm going to lose for writing that is somebody I don't even want to be a fan really so that doesn't matter but but for me I remember just feeling sad because I thought I wrote that because I was horrified by the law because I felt a sense of shame um because I'm Nigerian and there's a sense in which I I feel responsible and I felt a kind of shame and I felt I felt sad and in talking to people I realized how popular I was but I also referred to myself that there's an opportunity to try and start a conversation I wrote that piece particularly for Nigerians a particularly for generation of Nigerians not not my father's generation except sort of you know given up election ation but good but the younger Nigerians who I think who I felt them yeah I could try if it were possible for me to change one person's mind it would make me very happy and the reason that I started off with because I had many conversations with people about this law and I would actually go why I went to hair salon here we go again I went to hair salon Lagos and and the woman who's doing my hair and here's the thing every hair salon in Lagos has a gay man there it's late Sato any and Aaron is that along and so so when people say things like who it's not African let me have you been Hezbollah are you serious so the the gig I was doing my hair and then the woman so I sort of wanted to I said to them but it's also that thing where we know he's homosexual but we don't we it's not acknowledged it's not said yeah so then I start asking him and asking her the other woman what we thought about the law and both of them said it was a good thing and I know something about it again going back to sadness and you know what I said about nostalgia it broke my heart because I thought this is what this country has done to him that he's now he's become a person who's supposed to say this because that's he has to UM and yeah I wrote it because I just had to I felt that I know I have a voice of sorts I know that that I have a readership and I I wanted to try and start a conversation and and to say to people we can remain the religious country that we are without becoming an inhumane country and really let's sit down and think about how is it a crime that a person loves another person I mean really you know it's it's and lots of people were talking about how the people who didn't really support the law I noticed many of them talked about how we have many other problems let's talk about health care and education and and terrorism in the north and and I was sympathetic to that but I wanted to say even if we didn't have all of these problems this is still a problem right because it seemed to me that we were that somehow the underlying suggestion was well if we can solve electricity and terrorism then maybe we should somehow criminalize homosexuality right that's a that's a yes and I wanted to sort of make it about it's unjust it doesn't matter what the conditions are I mean clearly it's a distraction the part of the government but it's unjust it's and you can you see I mean it seems to me this will go on it will the people who say they don't see that law being repealed I'm I have hope you never know but it's not even about the law being repealed it's about changing people's minds because the things are convenient in the books and be long but it that doesn't concern well I mean in the sense of you know your your appeal is to a younger generation that certainly is what's happened here and quite recently yeah centrally where the issues and they they find this out of course in focus groups that mattered it doesn't matter to the vast majority of young people the issues surrounding homosexuality and so you can bang on it all you want but it's you know dogs bark but the caravan moves on keeps going yeah and it's going to go on I think that we'll get there might take a bit longer yes religion is a very strong ok we're going to go to questions from the audience in a minute uh we haven't talked about your hair no well I was going to say let's talk about your hair because it is unbelievable first of all and it's a it's a defining thing in Americana it's about the evolution of if Emmylou the the American African and also accent yes and I was interested about that now it's the accent part we'll get to here we'll finish with hair ok all right why are you interested in the accent is like when I came to the US I could like really do an American so I would be like I have some water please but like I can't really do it very well anymore because um you do it great so what I am excellent it's very interesting it and I think I'm people here who sort of are from somewhere else I think will identify with the idea that you come to the u.s. in Americans and you speak English because that's I mean I'm an English speaker I need to English speaker but because you don't have an American accent Americans look at you as well you're a bit strange and then they start to speak to you very slowly so when you say and can you tell me how to get to the store they see no and when this happened to me the first time and I said I've use that in the book I remember thinking what's wrong with her so we start really slow but so so and so then I started no but really I mean I do this now yes I like about this now but but at the time you're new to a country you feel very disoriented you're you're a student and the other kids are kind of looking at you strange here from Africa you so then I started doing I and I can't believe how easy it was to I don't even know how I would I just did a really good American accent and and on the phone people I remember when this vocabulary probably changes too and we all know that that's very nostalgic to friends you start to talk a little like them in the book you say that opens comments that you just wrote that you were excited about your media class and not me femen I'm sorry yes yeah that did not happen that did not oh that's not me know what I did but do you like that word excited which is it particularly a Merriam kind of things I feel excited and I remember actually when I risk into the u.s. thinking these people are too excited I mean what's doing so exciti I mean by the time it's sort of my second year and undergrad I used I was you know I would I was excited about everything I was I like to have a glass of water and all of those things and I remember actually and I don't use this in the novel but I think it was when and my father you know my yeah my education was very Nigerian which meant in many ways sort of very British aligned that the Spelling's so now my spelling my spelling is ruined because in Nigeria I could spell properly I didn't use computers or anything and I spelled with the you so Connor was you and then I come to the US and I'm typing and the computer keeps changing the spelling so I would smell come on it would underline you like that's wrong yeah so slowly of course I start spelling the American Way and and my father is horrified by this so often if I write a note for my dad my father will correct the spirit be like con la has a you you know that's a good thing and or things like diarrhea or things like now I can't spell no I can't spell either wait still you're a second oil you're an exile from spelling I guess gossipy all right here yes so what do you think I mean would this evolve for you because when when you arrived here in the United States there are a lot of they mean it's been commented on and it's been said that you said not if Emmylou yeah that it was a new world in a sense to understand that I was I was black yeah and that was something separate yeah from what I grew up feeling as part of you know my my country my people and yeah what it was and how did you wrestle with that in the beginning I mean in the beginning I really pushed pushed it away I didn't mean to put it very bluntly I it didn't take me very long to realize that in America black was not necessarily a good thing and that black came with many negative assumptions and so I didn't want to be black I was like I am NOT black I'm Nigerian imeem or not black and race was not an identity I was willing to take because you know and this is a story of too many times about being in the class in college and the professor coming in with the paper we'd written and it was the first people we'd written with sent it in by email so we throw printed them out and so he goes who is adichie which is what Americans often call me and I adichie had written the best essay and he wanted to know what did she was and I raised my hand and he looked surprised and I will never forget that moment because that's when I realized what it what the assumptions that came with blackness because I think he came into that class in which there were maybe five or six black people not imagining that one of those black people would have written the best essay and I suppose maybe his history of teaching I don't know what the basis for that assumption was but and I think it took living in the u.s. ribbity took reading a lot I started to read a lot of American history African American history in particular and and so I went full circle from sort of thinking and thinking about the guy in Brooklyn who called me sister Anna's like no not your sister this was very true this is very early on and going full circle and wishing I could find that guy today because I would hug you and be like oh all right I would be like yes but but I think for me and I like to think that it's not just my experience I like to think that this is something that's familiar to many immigrants who come from Africa or the Caribbean because there's something about race in America that's really messed up me and I so that that that experience though of differentially differentiating yourself first yeah and now embracing the commonalities essentially is where where is the are you gonna say whoa are you prescriptive no because I think that the thing about it is yes now I'm black and if he called me sista I would be quite happy to say hey how are you and but then the question is what does that mean what does it mean to be black and I think that there are many blacks and there many meanings and there many and so I don't think that black is ABC and that this sort of a you know secret society of Negroes that's what has it that has a rulebook that you have to follow because there many plants and I think that's part of the problem with racial assumptions when we limit what it means to be black so that so that people then become guilty of transgressions what you're doing is not black right and who's like it's not well you are in a real follow either we've established that earlier that you prefer you embrace breaking rules actually evening which should be broken I mean it's an artistic sensibility to which yeah yeah yeah and I also think that conformity is not always a good thing and and that but but when you think about it to be human we're so well wonderfully diverse and what yeah yeah yeah all right let's do a few questions shall we so there are microphones out in the house so if you could raise your hand we'll take a couple of questions and we'll bring the microphone to you so please why don't we start right here in the middle the yellow thank you hi Chimamanda know if you don't mind me calling you by my first name no no I'm good I'm from Sri Leone and my question to you is I've lived in Africa's and various countries in Africa as an adult and and suddenly I think this year for the first time in my life I feel a sort of ambivalence about going home which was my plan I've been in New York for about three years now and my plan was always to go back to Africa but when I hear about laws like the auntie gave and here were sexual laws in both my dear and Uganda and in Uganda in particular the you know anti-pornography you know so you're women are basically or men are encouraged to persecute and to attack women in the streets if they are wearing you know things that they consider exactly I mean I do I kind of it's a it's this feeling that I've never had before I wonder if you ever feel that way being back in Nigeria do you ever sort of feel a sense of ambivalence should I stay should I go back no you know why and I understand that ambivalence and I have friends who feel that and I mean some ways I sympathize with it especially if you've lived outside of but I don't have it because my thing is I'm Nigerian and it's my home I have a house and I spent most of my money on that house and we bloody live in that house and so because of that I'm going to stay there it's you know it's sort of dug out it's mine and which is why for me sort of retreating isn't an option I want to engage I want to because I want to live there and and it's it's disastrous I mean what's happening in Uganda a version of it has happened in Nigeria where for a while those talk about what they called indecent dressing and passing all kinds of stupid laws about what women could wear and the thing about it is unless I really think that we need a critical mass unless many women start to see this is not okay and men yeah yeah so I'm no I don't think about leaving it and yeah that house cost a lot of money okay next question right in the centre which is going to cause a little bit of gymnastics necessity with the microphone but let's just go for it hello and there I am tation and I remember when Edwidge Danticat first published her novels there was a certain amount of pushback from the Haitian community about some of the things that she'd written oh you shouldn't write about that those are things that should be spoken about you'll give foreigners people who don't understand the wrong impression and to me I always hated that because I presented this sort of one-dimensional sort of like view of Haitian people were just this one thing but we're multifaceted for human we have all these different dimensions to us and so I wondered when you know publishing your novels and speaking so honestly and openly about Nigeria and your experiences there and just kind of writing from there if you experience that sort of thing and what was sort of your response to that oh I got I got the same kind of pushback I think that when you're from a country and it's not just Nigerian Haiti I think you know my friends from Pakistan get that India as well you know Bangladesh if you're from a part of the world and it's always like you know what without agreeing with the censors I understand where they come from if you're from a part of the world that has so long been maligned and very little about it is known there is a tendency to want to say in that wonderful way that w/e big boys once said and they have so criticized our bad points that we now want to pretend that we don't have any bad points you know and there's something about it that's understandable but that's not that's not what fiction or art is supposed to do I think that's what I don't know we can sort of publish bug or maybe tourism you know the sort of Nigeria Nigeria how many Nigerians are here just curious and like okay so I don't know if any of you have seen the Nigerian tourism infomercial on International CNN and this image is where for us Nigerians were like worries like what you know everything's a pristine it's perfect they're like I mean like what I think that that's what that you know people want to do that it can do that with or is it not not art and not fiction so I think to be a fiction writer is to be determined and to be willing to occupy a space where you don't set out to offend but you're willing to offend because you want to speak your truth and I also think I do a disservice to Nigeria if I pretend that we don't have I mean I love my country right from a place of love well there's so much I don't like and I want to write about those as well yeah you spoke earlier with the students about no critics when you're when you're writing fiction there are no creek yes they don't get ya near so the physics are dead yo your family doesn't exist your friends don't exist nobody's there because that's the only way you can tell the truth otherwise you're going to be thinking you know my uncle max won't like this part you know my cousin my father they have to go it has to be you on the walk it has to be a kind of radical honesty and within let's just we're talking about communities essentially yeah whether it's an Indian community Pakistani community Nigerian community and then down to their family community is that and and your support system is intact you're exempt I guess I'm childhood on - well I still had to do all that I did you know house Joe's were equally divided in that just because you wrote stories didn't mean you didn't have to do the dishes in my parents house but you're right I mean because I come from a very close-knit family and I have I have a very small but very sort of firm support network of family and close friends and that's important to me but even they don't exist when I'm working because they can't exist and sometimes I use their stories without permission yeah and then I mean it actually an Americana you apologize to I don't know how to write annuda ready for taking her taking her ID is even with dogs you know what I met you apologize on behalf you have your kick the character do is what I meant right yeah but I do not you to lay that out that yeah alright but in my life I doing I don't even remember I just know I stood up again I just feel this tourism sometimes will complete or but it's very sweet because they I mean they been really nice because I change things but sometimes my cousin said to me for example wait that's me but I that's not how it happened she's like that when you change the story on like yes it's changed this right and sometimes people will say that's me but I'm thinking no it's actually your sister you know that's the thing I tell you get it works yes I pletely things I don't exactly use them okay other questions why don't we go first here and then we're going to go up to the backs we're going to do a try and spread this around geographic I'm hyper STUV all I totally even from the way I speak understand your story about coming to America and not being from here because I grew up in Ethiopia and I moved here and I took like an American oh that oh my god like you do the accent well okay totally but my question was about the article you wrote on the anti-homosexual on law in Nigeria in Ethiopia there is no law yet but definitely the sentiment is very similar in the sense that it's not supposed to be talked about and you're supposed to say it's not the right thing or that it is wrong but when you write such really um when you have opinions and you expose them and they're not the popular opinion for you as a writer are you worried not in terms of expressing yourself but and I don't I'm not aware of what happens in nature but in India but there's a lot of issues with armed journalists being um jailed and having prosecution because they are telling a story that is against popular opinion or government laws no I don't think I think I I recognized that I I am fortunate to have is certain my books are widely read in Nigeria my walk is fairly well-known there's a certain visibility and I have and I think there's a privilege that comes with that which means that it gives me a kind of voice and which means also I think that it gives me a certain kind of protection so that if actually I think what I wrote qualifies as a crime because I'm supporting homosexuality and I think it's 14 years that I might get I think though that I don't think the Nigerian government would want to do that because right I just I don't think that would be a good idea because then it would be very bad press and let's not give them let's that you know talk about it so they don't get like it's not but in general I I don't worry I think there's a it's important for me that the truth that the truth is spoken I think that it's important and and and I you know even if I didn't have the privilege of sort of this kind of visibility and if I if if I was offered the you know it call you in a newspaper I would write about it because I feel strongly about it and and I think that the more we we need to speak we could yeah we need to speak and what's lovely about it actually it started conversation there young people who've said to me for example I'm not supporting homosexuality but I can see why it shouldn't be a crime for me that's progress you know because because it's a conversation that started with the premise you're not stupid right it's I understand that the Bible is important to you but can you see how this isn't working in a democracy and that's a you know that's for me a starting point so so no I don't worry I don't but but you know they do arrest me I hope you send me things in prison I particularly like chocolate some of that is about voice and I know how important that is for writer to find their voice and so my question is coming from your singular cultural experience of Nigeria some sense and then coming to America how did your American experience impact your voice as a writer I knew in the writing program no because you know sometimes I don't even know what voice means when people say I was did an event and this woman said to me aren't you happy that you could come to the US and find your voice I mean my thinking well I Gerry I wasn't you know I could speak I I think I get a sense of what that kind of the certain the sort of the way one tells one story that I'm sure that America has certainly must have had an impact of course it must have because I lived here for many years and and I became used to America in ways that I started to expect that banks had to have that fast drive-through section which I don't think anywhere else in the world has and and and there's a lot about my my expectations in of the world and in the world that come from America so there must seep into my walk as well but I couldn't tell you exactly how because I don't think that I know but I do know that when I'm in Europe I constantly complain about customer service and I realize that this is a particular American thing because I'm so used to the American smile and everything but Europe this so and you think what is probably a bit more America right so but but so that must have but I don't know I don't know I couldn't tell you exactly how if that makes sense I don't know that I can consciously talk about how my approach to stories hadn't changed because I had lived in the US but but it must have affected it in some way I think everything will goes through one last question it's the woman with the cool hair yes thank you Chimamanda I'm from Guinea and I'm Fulani and it's only relevant because my question is about language you do this beautiful thing in your novels where you invite people into the Ebola edge right like I know k2 will be a child things like that and you do it on apologetically right you do it you do not explain your evil words after so you have people like me on Google Nigeria calm you can now translate right I'll see what it means and I wonder if that's a deliberate choice for you yes as a recent board member in the Nigerian Tourism Association I'm kidding maybe it is but you know I mean on the one hand it is and it actually does make me happy to hear this but in the same way I would be thrilled if you wrote a novel when it had Fulani words in it and I probably would also go look things up if I if I cared enough or maybe not right but it wouldn't get in the way no but really it wouldn't get in the way of them so that means you speak for full-day okay okay okay right right okay um you know what I really what I set out to doing my walk is I'm trying to capture a bit away a certain kind of people certain kind of place and time and many of my characters like me are people who are constantly negotiating two languages so I speak English and emu at the same time sometimes in the same sentence very often and I want to try and capture that in my fiction and and I suppose for me the way to do it is to throw in the Evo words but also of course I don't want to necessarily alienated reader so I don't do it in a way I don't I hope that it doesn't come across as a pushing away rather that it's a way of saying here's how this world is and I want to try and and somehow make you see it I speak and also in the ways that you become different versions in Nigeria when I I go to the market for example I'll speak sometimes I'll speak pidgin English but when I do speak English it's not the English I'm speaking now it's another version because I'm in the market so I'll be like I'm a damn how much is this your signals knots okay right I become that and then when I'm sort of sitting with this lovely man I speak the English that my English teacher in secondary school taught us with the BBC radio thing right eye and then when I'm with my family we speak both we speak in English and we don't even we're not even conscious of when we switch we it's just and the times when will you evoke and capture something and times when only English can capture something and I really just try to to show that in my fiction and um but of course the the unintended consequence is that I am now officially promoting Nigerian tourism so hopefully from sort of going to Google then you buy it together and come to Nigeria then you live fast no but you know it's it's it's it's it's funny but it's real because if you think about think about joys and the you know the way he used language and it's all in there and you need a dictionary much of the time but just for the the English words and it it goes from there into the foreign languages and the the sense of wanting to feel at an experience yeah and there's some kind of Irishness that you fall in love with if you fall in love with the event and are they heroes could we should ask you about heroes literary heroes ha well chino chiba is the writer whose most important and his walk no era of god is my favorite novel ever need in he he just yeah he's an icon for me there's so many writers i love and every time I'm asked I I don't know that I think about also the books I love I love 100 Years of Solitude already what else as well maybe and just love it there's just this I love and I love Michael and I cheese onions ghosts Oh Lord every time I'm asked I forget um yeah that's something just completely below so but the idea of the I'm thinking about the Hundred Years of Solitude specifically just a magnificent fan to see you just unfold yeah that's very out yeah but it's a kind of fantasy that's not really fantasy now you know it's not yeah it's not Lord of the Rings no not that kind of answer so yeah well I'll tell you what's no fantasy you are incredible you're brave you're brave you're possess my dynasty and we want to say thank you Chimamanda we'll be signing books which are available out there so I hope you'll stay and say hello and take a book and I just have to say thank you what an honor thank you thank you all for coming

Channel: The Aspen Institute

Views: 97,956

Rating: 4.8675213 out of 5

Keywords: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Author), arts, novel, fiction, Book, The Arts (Literature Subject), Writer (Occupation), beyonce, half of a yellow sun, americanah, Biafra (Country), Aspen Institute (Organization), race, Nigeria (Country), Books, Mtv, Awards, MacArthur Fellowship (Award Category), Damian Woetzel

Id: 1e0J24rTTu4

Length: 58min 17sec (3497 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 11 2014