Chimamanda Adichie, a true storyteller.

                                                                                                                 

      

Video 1:

The Nigerian writer explains in this conference, why we should not believe a “single story” about a country and how dangerous it could be. We have to go beyond a stereotyped and incomplete story to know deeply the way of living and the essence of a society. Chimamanda Adichie gives an example about the Mexicans, who in the United States are known just with the qualification of “immigrants”. It was when she visited that country that she felt ashamed of that single story that she believed for many years. Mexicans are people with values, they have a nation, they have a culture, and an identity. The writer concludes: “show a people as only one thing over and over again and that is what they become”. However, we do not need to visit a country to know its reality, because local literature is the best way to do this. Concerning her reading experiences as a child, the writer tells us that she only knew American literature, although she had no idea about the meaning of some words. In her adolescence she knew African literature, her roots and reality, and a new paradise opened in her life that made her realise about the danger of a single story.

Video 2:

Chimamanda Adichie was selected for the commonwealth lecture in 2012 where she explained why books not only enlarge our imagination, but also they are immensely powerful. Realistic literature, especially, reminds us of how similar we are in the midst of our differences. We share values; we have dignity and we have to be recognized as human beings by governments which abuse of their power. A book is truly potent to show this aspect, because though a real story you can live and feel the reality of a small town in Africa, of a village in India or of any place in the world. The writer tells an anecdote about a judge, who read the novel “things fall apart” before moving to Namibia to become a consultant to the Namibian regime. That judge changed dramatically his mind after reading that novel because he could not stand the idea of giving his services to an apartheid regime. He should have known what the situation in Africa was at those times, but living it throughout the pages of that novel made him see the situation from a humanistic perspective. We are not “a single story” and books have the power to show and keep those treasures of all the humanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D9Ihs241zeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vmsYJDP8g2U