Lit Talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

At the ripe age of 31, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has published two multi-award-winning novels and a recent collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck. Raised in Nigeria until the age of 19 (interestingly, in a home formerly occupied by Chinua Achebe), she has been commended for her stunning control of the English language and her intricate examination of tensions between new and old, black and white, man and woman. Below, she talks about her life, her language, and her art with Dr. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo of the Women’s Caucus of the African Literature Association.
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Azodo: You hail from the Igbo country of eastern Nigeria. Could you tell us about your parentage, siblings, and grandparents?

Adichie: My father is from Abba and my mother is from Umunnachi, both in Anambra State. I grew up in the university town of Nsukka, where my parents worked. I did not know my grandfathers, as they both died in the Nigeria-Biafra war. My grandmothers were strong, interesting women. I am the fifth of six children.

Azodo: Why do you choose the English language as the medium of your expressive writing? What is your view on the use of indigenous languages by African fiction writers? Would you ever consider writing in the Igbo language?

Adichie: I’m not sure my writing in English is a choice. If a Nigerian Igbo like myself is educated exclusively in English, discouraged from speaking Igbo in a school in which Igbo was just one more subject of study (and one that was considered “uncool” by students and did not receive much support from the administration), then perhaps writing in English is not a choice, because the idea of choice assumes other equal alternatives.

Although I took Igbo until the end of secondary school and did quite well, it was not at all the norm. Most of all, it was not enough. I write Igbo fairly well but a lot of my intellectual thinking cannot be expressed sufficiently in Igbo. Of course this would be different if I had been educated in both English and Igbo. Or if my learning of Igbo had an approach that was more holistic.The interesting thing, of course, is that if I did write in Igbo (which I sometimes think of doing, but only for impractical, emotional reasons), many Igbo people would not be able to read it. Many educated Igbo people I know can barely read Igbo and they mostly write it atrociously.

I think that what is more important in this discourse is not whether African writers should or should not write in English but how African writers, and Africans in general, are educated in Africa.I do not believe in being prescriptive about art. I think African writers should write in whatever language they can. The important thing is to tell African stories. Besides, modern African stories can no longer claim anything like ‘cultural purity.’ I come from a generation of Nigerians who constantly negotiate two languages and sometimes three, if you include Pidgin. For the Igbo in particular, ours is the Engli-Igbo generation and so to somehow claim that Igbo alone can capture our experience is to limit it. Globalization has affected us in profound ways.

I’d like to say something about English as well, which is simply that English is mine. Sometimes we talk about English in Africa as if Africans have no agency, as if there is not a distinct form of English spoken in Anglophone African countries. I was educated in it; I spoke it at the same time as I spoke Igbo. My English-speaking is rooted in a Nigerian experience and not in a British or American or Australian one. I have taken ownership of English.

Azodo: Could you tell us about your literary itinerary, that is, your beginning, where you are at now, and where you are going in the future with writing?Adichie: I’ve been writing since I was old enough to spell. I fell in love with books as a child and writing remains the only thing I find truly meaningful. I cannot speak about where I am going in the future because I like to think that I will know when I get there.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie can be seen at the following spots in the next couple of weeks:

Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Free Library of Philadelphia

1901 Vine St.Philadelphia, Pa. 19103

215.686.5322

Friday, June 19 at 7:00 p.m.

Harvard Bookstore
1256 Massachusetts Ave.

Cambridge, Mass. 02138
617.661.1515

Tuesday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 N. Harwood
Dallas, Tex. 75201214.922.1200

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo by Okey Adichie