SR: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 SR: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie :-

Chimamanda was born in Enugu, Nigeria on September 15, 1977. Her works centered primarily on the Biafran war in Nigeria in the late 1960’s.

From a young age, Chimamanda is already a voracious reader. She found the work of fellow Igbo Chinua Achebe, “Things Fall Apart,” as truly powerful and trans formative. She studied medicine in Nsukka for a time, however, she felt that it was not her calling so she left for the United States in 1997. In the US, she studied Political Science and Communication at the Eastern Connecticut State University. Traveling back and forth to Nigeria and the US, she also worked hard and earned a Creative Writing Master’s degree from the prestigious John Hopkins University. Later on, she also went and studied African history at Yale.

Chimamanda Adichie’s play entitled “For Love of Biafra” was printed in Nigeria in 1998 but she remarked that this particular play as appallingly“melodramatic.” In this play, she explored the repercussions of the 1960 Nigeria and Biafra war. Later on, she wrote stories picturing the conflicts in that same war. In 2006, she wrote her highly-successful novel “Half of a Sun,” still drawing inspiration from the said Biafran and Nigerian war.

Her first novel entitled “Purple Hibiscus” was written and published in 2003 when she was still a student at the Eastern Connecticut State University. The novel talks about the coming-of-age of a 15-year-old girl named Kambili. Although they are rich, her father was a religious fanatic which causes a lot of problems. This novel won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2005 for Best First Book written by an African category and also won the 2005’s Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book for all categories. Furthermore, the said novel was short-listed for the 2004 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Chimamanda Adichie received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2008. In 2009, she then released her collection of short stories called “The Thing Around Your Neck.” In 2013, she released “Americanah,” a novel which tells the story of a young Nigerian woman learning and blogging about ethnicity and race in the US.

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Truly, the story of Chimamanda Adichie’s success is the perfect example of how one can turn discrimination against one’s color and cultural background into their very own platform for success.

1. Did the first talk help you in understanding of postcolonialism?

yes, the first talk help  me in understanding of postcolonialism.Americanah is written entirely in the third person point of view. The narrator is both reliable and omniscient. This does not change even when the book shifts focus from present to past and from Ifemelu to Obinze. The narrator reveals the actions and thoughts of the characters throughout the book. For example, when Obinze meets a woman and her son in a coffee shop in England, the narrator describes the actions of the three characters while also revealing that Obinze finds her attractive and the encounter leaves him thinking about love. This point of view allows the reader to get to know the characters involved and develop an interest in what happens to them.

The story is told in a mix of exposition and dialogue, with dialogue occurring through a wide variety of characters. The pace is moderate with enough action to keep the reader.

2. Are the arguments in the seconds talk convincing? 

yes, the arguments in the seconds talk convincing because The words she sampled were from a now-famous TED Talk by Chimamanda where she talks about feminism, and why it is important to teach it to girls. More recently, we have seen some heated debates about the relevance of feminism, thanks to the tumblr ‘Women Against Feminism’ and all the negative light they are casting on the movement.

More than anything, our point of view is that people are now having honest an open conversations on a global scale, and we have an anti-feminist site to that for that. Feminism is getting more publicity than ever, in this digital age where literally anything has the potential to go viral, like their tumblr page. What it has also allowed is for the positive (read: not radical or exclusionary) feminist voices to rise up and be stronger than ever, and show cynics that all the stereotypical things about the movement that seem to be perpetuated by society, are certainly not telling the full story. The negative and radicalism has hijacked what true feminism is about: equality, and women supporting women.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has just released a book version of her TED talk called ‘We should all be feminists’, which you can buy online, or you can watch the full video here. Given the current climate of feminism, it couldn’t have been more timely.

If there is anyone out there looking for a clear, concise, short and convincing reason why feminism is still relevant, this is the speech you need to hear or read. To start off, let’s be reminded of the dictionary definition: “the theory of the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.”

For those that think Chimamanda spent her life reading feminist books and probably can’t identify with her, you’d be wrong.

In an interview with Vogue about the release of her book, Chimamanda says her speech was received quite well from the men in her country.

“I was surprised that some of the young men that I’ve heard from, mostly Nigerians, who I thought of as so retrograde that they could not be saved, actually started to think about and talk about gender. We don’t really talk about gender, and I’m very much a believer in the power of discourse, in having conversations, of trying to reach out.”

3. What did you like about the third talk?

In the third video about truth in post-truth era, she beautifully said about the courage of speaking truth. Her thought is to be loyal with ourselves to tell the truth. Post truth is very dangerous weapon in this 21st century, especially political parties make use of this kind of weapon to provocate riots and also Media used for profit and to raise their TRP. So. She tries to say that do not driven as sheeple with the political language, try to understand the truth with authentication and always doubt in such a things.

4. Are these talks bringing any significant change in your way of looking at literature and life?

yes, these talks bringing significant change in my  way of looking at literature and life because after this talk in my mind I can see the world in larger picture instead looking from only one perspective .