Q: Is Purple Hibiscus in the bookstores yet? Or is it just available online? When will it be out?

A: It's in stores in the US (I've actually just come back from a reading at school, sponsored by my department. I'm doing a six-state book tour and I start on Thursday (the 9th of October) with a reading in a bookstore in Harlem, New York It is also available online at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com It will be out in the UK on March 1, 2004

Q: Chimamanda is a very unusual Igbo name. What does it mean? I guess I could translate it literally as "My God will never fall " but do you have a different translation/concept?

A: Yes, the literal is fine. Also -- my spirit is unbreakable? Ha! Seriously, the literal is fine, and of course all gods are in danger of falling so it makes sense.

Q: What inspired or inspires you to write?

A: I didn't ever consciously decide to pursue writing. I've been writing since I was old enough to spell, and just sitting down and writing made me feel incredibly fulfilled. I may have considered other careers to make a living since I wasn't sure I could do it from writing, but I have never thought actively about my choice write. I just write. I have to write. I like to say that I didn't choose writing, writing chose me. This may sound slightly mythical, but I sometimes feel as if my writing is something bigger than I am. There are days when I sit at my laptop and will myself to write and nothing happens. There are other days when I have things to do but feel compelled to write. And the writing just flows out. I am never sure what triggers these 'inspirations,' if that is what they are. More mundanely, the rituals and geography of specific places inspire me - the chaotic energy of Lagos, the sereneness of Nsukka, the insular calm of Mansfield, Connecticut. And I love observing people and tiny details about them. I often get the urge to write from imagining or inventing lives for people I don't know.

Q: Biafra, (even though you were born seven years after the war ended), multiethnicity, culture and religion all feature heavily in your work. Can you explain why?

A: ON BIAFRA -- It frustrates me that we choose, in Nigeria, to ignore our recent history. I am often asked why I write about Biafra, as though it is something I have to justify. Imagine asking somebody to justify writing about the holocaust. We do not just risk repeating history if we sweep it under the carpet, we also risk being myopic about our present. I was never taught about the war when I was in primary or secondary school - so if children today are not being taught that, how can they put what is happening today in perspective? How will they make connections that will enable them begin to understand what Nigeria is and why it is the way it is?

I am aware of the resurgence of the Biafran philosophy - although I am wary of that _expression, because to me there is no particular Biafran philosophy. Biafra was about a universal philosophy. Despite the politics and egos and ambitions that were involved - and I say this because I do not idealize the war itself - it would be iniquitous to deny that at it's most basic, Biafra was about the inalienable right of human beings to be alive. But I am less interested in that resurgence as I am in paying tribute to the thousands who died, and in questioning our history, through my fiction.

About the place of the Igbo in Nigeria. Again, I am more interested in the Igbo nation itself, and in how cultural priorities and responsibility and unity can be achieved within it. I find it curious, though, that Biafra is nearly always a tribally divided issue. I wonder, too, why Biafra still seems to be taboo and to carry a stigma. I think it says something about the place of the Igbo in Nigeria today that BIAFRA has become an 'Igbo issue.' If one claims to believe in Nigeria, and in the unity in diversity idea, then one must embrace the study and investigation of Biafra because Nigeria would not be today as it is if Biafra had not been.

ON MULTIETHNICITY - Not sure what you mean. Ndi ocha (White/Western society)? Well, I guess I do write about that because in many ways living in the Diaspora means negotiating life in a 'multi-ethnic place.'

ON CULTURAL VALUES -- 'Cultural values.' That term worries me, especially when it is used next to Africa because I have found that we sometimes use it to shield our hypocrisies and to perpetuate the lies we tell ourselves. I love the culture of my people, but at the same time, I do not believe in idealizing, or in transporting it to its 'pure' past. I think Chinua Achebe is one of the greatest writers the world has ever seen, because he did not only tell us, the writers who would come after him, that our stories were worthy, he also swiped at the disgusting stereotypes of Africa. That said, I don't believe in being prescriptive about literature. I don't think writers SHOULD write this or write that. They should just write. I speak for myself alone and I am interested in presenting things as they are and in challenging our collective hypocrisy. I remember being blasted by an Igbo web group, about two years ago, because of a story about a teenager who had a boyfriend. A boyfriend! We prefer sometimes to cover our heads with our hands and pretend that things do not happen. Until we acknowledge things to be the way they are, we cannot own them, and we cannot control them.

RELIGION - I am fascinated by the power of religion. I grew up Catholic, still am although I am what may be called a Liberal Catholic, which is that I believe in Lourdes but also think that contraception is a good thing. Religion is such a huge force, so easily corruptible and yet so capable of doing incredible good. The streak of intolerance I see masquerading itself as faith and the way we create an image of God that suits us, are things I am interested in questioning. I am also interested in colonized religion, how people like me can profess and preach a respect of their indigenous culture and yet cling so tenaciously to a religion that considers most of that indigenous culture evil.. I think religion will probably feature in some way in everything I write - it, and the idea of faith itself, is something that I question, grapple with, almost daily.

Q: What are your pet peeves-the little things that bug you?

A: I can't stand it when people choose to portray things the way they wish they were, rather than the way they actually are. I can't stand empty Big Manism, something my people do too well.

Q: How deeply do you draw from your own personal experiences in your writing?

A: My THEMES are from my life, I guess, from what I am interested in. But I try not to write 'autobiographical' fiction , although I confess a recent story, still unpublished is based on a recent relationship. Mostly though, I try not to write about ME.

Q: Do you see a mission or reason for your writing?

A: I don't think I have a MISSION for writing. I write because it is a need, a compulsion almost. But then I do have issues I love to explore - Nigeria, of course, as well as Nigerians in Diaspora. The subtleties of race, especially in America. The place and role and choices of Nigerian Women. 'Modern' Igbo culture, or what Igbo culture has evolved into (although Chinweizu, whom I greatly admire, told me once that there is no such thing, that things do not evolve into weaker forms!)

Q: Have writing workshops been useful to you?

A: Yes. I think they are useful as long as one realizes that the other participants can all be sincerely wrong about a particular work. I see workshops as a 'focus group' in many ways. I read my work through their eyes and sometimes you see it more clearly, especially the weaknesses in it.

Q: Do you have any favourite writers/books

A: Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, Reef by Romesh Gunesekera, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Also, I like Claire Messud's penetrating intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's poetic prose. I admire the lovely, un-self conscious style of Jhumpa Lahiri and Amit Chaudhuri. And Sefi Attah and Chris Abani are people to watch.

Q: Was switching to a degree in Communications, from Medicine, following your dream of writing?

A: Yes. I didn't want to study English. I wanted to study something where I would learn about things outside of novels, if that makes sense. I had wanted to major in politics, but couldn't because of some technicality. So I chose communication -- it was called Corporate Communication at Drexel, and I took classes in TV, print, radio and political science. I have always been interested in the media anyway.

Q: Are you on a scholarship to Johns Hopkins? (Where she has just started an MA in Creative Writing)

A: Yes. I have a full scholarship and I am teaching freshman writing as part of my fellowship (and for a miserable stipend)

Q: What is your message to young writers, especially those from Africa and perhaps specifically Nigeria?

A: Do NOT copy John Grisham. Write our own stories. And as you write a story, imagine that your parents and uncles and aunties and relatives will NEVER read it. They may or may not end up reading it, but the point is that if you keep that in mind as you work, you are more likely to write truthfully, more likely to write things as they are rather than as you wish they were or as you think they ought to be.

Q: What are your future plans, and hopes? After Johns Hopkins, what next?

A: I'd like to set up a writing colony of some sort in Nigeria. In Nsukka preferably. To get younger Nigerian writers to tell our own stories. I'm not sure what I'll do after Hopkins. I will probably try and get a teaching position, to teach creative writing, and I'd love a part time position so I can work on my own writing. But of course all of that will depend on how well my book does, etc.