"The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”When Chimamanda Adichie said this as part of her amazing TED talk in 2010, I wonder if she knew that it will be watched over 3.5 million times, be the subject of conversations from the dinner table to inter-cultural conferences and re-define how people viewed themselves and others. With her eagerly anticipated new novel; Americanah out soon, anticipation is sky high on how she will explore the immigration story, the way only she can. The context for her new book appears to be around the millions of Nigerian immigrants to the West and the complexity of the lives they create. Chimamanda has stuck to her childhood love for books and made a beautiful life out of bringing to life stories that touch the heart - leaving you somewhere in between smiles and tears. She does it so naturally that you can neither put down her books, nor turn away when she speaks.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a renowned Nigerian novelist was born in Nigeria in 1977. She grew up in the university town of Nsukka, Enugu State where she attended primary and secondary schools, and briefly studied Medicine and Pharmacy. She then moved to the United States to attend college, graduating summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a major in Communication and a minor in Political Science. She holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and a Masters degree in African Studies from Yale University. She was a 2005-2006 Hodder Fellow at Princeton, where she taught introductory fiction. Chimamanda is the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the 2007 Orange Prize For Fiction; and Purple Hibiscus, which won the 2005 Best First Book Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the 2004 Debut Fiction Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2009, her collection of short stories, The Thing around Your Neck was published. She was named one of the twenty most important fiction writers today under 40 years old by The New Yorker and was recently the guest speaker at the 2012 annual commonwealth lecture. She featured in the April 2012 edition of Time Magazine, celebrated as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. She currently divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.
