An Interview with "Americanah” Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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- čas přidán 3. 11. 2014
- "Americanah" Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Interviewer: Founding Director, The Race Card Project, and Host and Special Correspondent, NPR, Michele Norris
From the 2014 Washington Ideas Forum. Hosted in partnership with the Aspen Institute, the Washington Ideas Forum has developed a reputation for fostering creative thinking about the critical issues affecting our national identity, politics, and core values. Celebrating our six-year anniversary, we relaunched our flagship program at the stunning Harman Center of the Arts. A mix of programming on multiple stages, preview sessions, and custom events covered topics ranging from energy and technology to health care and urban renewal.
This woman has given clarity to a lot of who I am as an immigrant moving to America.
I am repeatedly impressed with her. She holds her own in enviable fashion... always.
you prolly dont give a damn but does anyone know of a method to get back into an Instagram account??
I was stupid lost the password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me!
@Forest Phillip instablaster =)
I am glad she pointed out the fact that Nigerians handled their business with the Ebola epidemic.😐
Such a brilliant interview. I am obsessed with her writing. I've read Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah and now I am reading The Thing Around Your Neck. I live part time in Ghana where I have my two sons who I adopted (or did they adopt me?) Soon I am settling there full time. What Chimamanda speaks of - the warning of the single story narrative - is so true. When anyone asks about my life in Ghana, I have to respond to them, "It's complicated. The continent of Africa is a complicated place. Do you have time to sit and talk?"
Dennis Hunter Yes I do.
Dennis Hunter indeed Ghana is complicated just like any other place because there are human beings with different cultures and opinions there. Africa or Ghana is not a hut with just one nuclear family. It's a lot of people and feelings, a lot of choices and voices, a lot of dreams and wishes. It is indeed a complicated place just like anywhere.
Homegoing Yaa Gyasi
Dennis Hunter yeah me too Ive got time
Dennis Hunter so nice of you
"Whole novels have been written about baseball. Why not hair?" Yes!
***** agreed
Oh!that book. At a point i was so nervous at the ending. I thought oh the ain't getting back together but then she wrote "ceiling" she said finally "come in". She simply made my day
What a brilliant mind! And an orator who holds your attention. I haven’t enjoyed a book like I did Americanah in a v long time…I felt so many of the feels as an immigrant in this America. You took us there Adichie…this interview was really refreshing. Can’t wait to read the rest of her books. Possibly the Achebe of our time.. Kudos 👸🏾
Who else thinks that the interviewer is extraordinary?
I love her so much!!! SO INSPIRING!!!!!!! Reppin' Nigeria!
Beautiful. Classy and Intelligent
Great interview! The interviewer was lovely (re: asking the write questions and giving room to speak) and the dialogue was fabulous! So enjoyable! :)
I, Adaora That rare creature, a talented interview asking intelligent and searching questions. Norris deserves her place as a radio personality and commentator on NPR as Adichie does hers, in the firmament of talented and charismatic celebrity authors.
that was a beautiful interview. the interviewer graceful and Chimamanda as always very intellectually attractive
Excellent interview. It was relaxed and well-paced on both parts. Love Chimamanda's writing. Completely breathing her in.
This book is my best friend was in tears when it finished . Master piece
Who feels the same? Among the interviewers Chimamanda has talked she (the interviewer) is one of the best. She just asks the questions like a learned, objective and well exposed journalist instead of asking what the massive want to hear
We could have done without the "Probably" in that closing statement. I have much admiration for this author. Her TedTalks are also brilliant, and worthy of many views!
Love that interview, Ngozi is very trueful and outspoken for the betterment of hueman and huewoman,,,,another Energy Sister,,,,I must say the first Africans in America did see them selves as a colour...also I love when the interviews are done by our people's it has meaning,and last I must say the same misfortunes were attributed wrongful with the Aids epidemic in Haiti in the 1980s as well.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie always speaks in a conversational manner with her interviewer. She always responded well to the questions asked by the Special Correspondent proving that she is current with the events around the world. I am impressed by her brilliant performance.
No matter what Nigeria is the best country in the world.
I love my country.
God bless our sister, Ngozi
God bless Nigeria
God bless Africa. God bless America and all other Nations of the world in Jesus name.
Nice one
As an African-born American (in the East African tradition) I absolutely admire and applaud the work that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is doing with her writing, public speaking, and her intellectual activism. She shines light on a marginalized group of people particularly African immigrants living in the West while raising awareness on key societal realities like women's issues, racism, classism, etc. All these pursuits that she mostly pens in her writing helps push the conversation forward on important subject matter on an engrossing, educational, didactic, and creatively, thought-provoking platform. With all that aside--I do have some criticisms to her writing. Having read her 2007 novel, "Half of A Yellow Sun", and her 2014 novel, "Americanah" I feel in many ways she's overly ambitious in her writing. While her characters in her books are, indeed, multi-dimensional and complex where Adichie does a good job in articulating their worlds and way of life, the multi-part narratives isn't constructive for a novel and, in many ways, confounds her overall message. Concision is tantamount to good writing. By eliminating verbosity and any loose tangents concision establishes clarity and lucidity to the morale of the story. Plus, its clean and organized in its structure--which in no way means a novel needs to be predictable and boring. Five-hundred pages is way too long for a novel and while both novels "Half of A Yellow Sun" (543 pages) and "Americanah" (588 pages) doesn't really stray off on a tangent it does bring in multiple major and minor characters to ongoing storylines mixed in with various themes that often leaves the reader confused and misguided to the original story arc itself. Simplicity is not only important in writing a novel for a wide market of readers because of sales it is vital in getting at the point of why the story is even being penned in the first place. There's no need to pack in all important subject matter and topics in one respectful novel. Leave your reader time to breathe, think, and reflect. If we are writing a nonfiction book that's a whole different thing in terms of concision. I felt after reading both novels that the story is so ongoing that it probably wouldn't really end--which was exactly the feeling I had afterwards. Both novels could really keep going in introducing new themes one after the other with no conclusion or closure. And, what great writer would not want one heck of a conclusion to their story? "Half of A Yellow Sun" which was the better-written book, in my opinion, was essentially a 3-person narrative in the backdrop of the Biafra War (Nigerian Civil War) during the mid-to-late 1960s. The three main characters are written simultaneously in chapter breaks from each other. Along the way, however, the timelines change and the story is no longer moving in chronological order, until later, it does again. Since this is Adichie's writing style--due to it also employed in her later novel "Americanah" I felt confounded as to where she is leading me as the reader. Her topics of love, war, violence, lessons in history, national identity, tribal/ethnic identity, patriotism, parenting, sexual expression, and so on gets lost in its juxtaposition constantly being inter-weaved in and out with no sense of understanding why and what to get at in context to the building of the story. Less is more--whether we are writing a novel, a screenplay for film, a teleplay for television, a script for stage-acting, or even an outline for a documentary film. Adichie should take one topic and one character and ride with it. For "Half of A Yellow Sun" I thought the character of Ugwu, the houseboy, as he goes through a loss of innocence during the war was far more intriguing of a storyline in development than the other two characters. Adichie could break each character down into their own respected novels as a series-part on the Biafra War, for example. Concision, in this case, is not only your friend but can save you and ensure a timeless legacy--if done well. As far as "Americanah" is concerned--again, a loose soap opera novel consisting of multiple themed-storylines with varying minor characters where the two major characters as part of a romantic entanglement carries the narrative over a time-frame spanning more than a decade. Plus, the blog entries that summed up the end of most of the chapters felt like the entire book was written as a freestyle, op-ed piece on race, hair, national identity, an immigrant experience in the U.S. and U.K., and more, which, really belongs more to the blogosphere than anywhere else.
+Adelin Gasana Your "criticism" of her two books is lame and flat out stupid. Her novels are long? And she's "overly ambitious in her writing?" Have you read Middlemarch? War and Peace? Anna Karenina? No, these books are ambitious, and also masterpieces. I would say the same of Half of a Yellow Sun. My friend, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Jack Lu lol! True.
Jack Lu I couldn’t have said it any better. I get the feeling Adeline is coming from a place of bitterness. Sometimes it can hurt seeing someone else in a position you feel ought to have been given to you.
You are a great woman keep it up my sister Chukwu gozie gi
Loved "Americanah", love the ideas she's sharing. She's really made me open my mind.
love her like mad
Oge Ubabuike yes nne kedu abum nwafor Igbo like you.
I read the book in her voice, especially Ifemelu. 🙂
Lovely interview. Thank you for posting!!!
Excellent interview! I love this!
Inspiring and interesting book.
Love her. Love the interview. How is it though, that her professor did not know the best essay in the class was written by a Black student - or he was somehow surprised. Was her name different when in college? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie?
Her name was Adichie on the essay, which sounds ITALIAN
Are you inferring she is lying?
She said in another interview that they used abbreviations instead of full names, I guess that was why.
Awesome interview. Great questions, great answers!
luwakw01
I'm sure others have used their best descriptive words to describe this young sister's style, intelligence, personality... But I simply want to say that she is "cool.'" Sometimes a simple colloquialism sums it up powerfully for me.
Adichie is in a unique position to compare racial hierarchies in the United States with social effort in her native Nigeria. She does this in this new job with a ruthless honesty about the ugly and beautiful sides of both nations. Americanah (Novel) Book By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (PDF-Book-Summary-Review-Online Reading-Download): www.toevolution.com/file/view/636395/americanah-novel-book-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-pdf-book-summary-review-online-reading-download
Waw intelligence to the end
me too
I love Chimamanda but im really concerned about the way she respond when she is being interviewed by African male repoters.
Lungelo Mkhize what do you mean
Jo
so sad Africans do not know the African American story
Genia Foster yes also we don't know the afro Caribbean and Brasilia story. Get over your self
So sad African American know nothing about Africa
Do African American know about African history. African Americans are individuals but african is a continent. So many countries in African
Why should they? Isnt such assumption also part of “the single narrative” forced upon people?
Hahahahahaha! How pathetic.
She should be very grateful that she had the opportunity to come to the United States.
+Slobodan Horvaarten i thought so about the oppressed white people on the Mayflower who came to the US
Grateful for what?
Slobodan Horvaarten regardless she’d have made a mark. Hard to bottle brilliance.
You're a troll!. You keep posting ignorant comments on her videos. Get a life if you're truly so superior.
Slobodan Horvaarten, so what's special about that? Vain glory.
Oh!that book. At a point i was so nervous at the ending. I thought oh the ain't getting back together but then she wrote "ceiling" she said finally "come in". She simply made my day
Ekennia Fortune
They deserve each other don't you think (Obinze & Ifemelu)