Sola Osofisan
06-19-2009, 12:25 AM
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: How the acclaimed novelist is becoming a role-model and mentor
Interview by Katy Guest
When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was a child at school, her report cards followed a frustrating pattern. Her grades were all As, but the teachers' remarks gave her parents headaches. "She is stubborn, arrogant, she has no respect," wrote one, after she told him that he was wrong about something. "I remember being angry with my father, being angry with the teacher, just feeling this sense of injustice that I hadn't been allowed to speak," she laughs. "I just didn't shut up, so I got into trouble."
Adichie's teacher must be spitting now, because she has not shut up since and is doing rather well out of it. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), won the Best First Book award in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Her second, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), set during the Biafran war, won the Orange Prize. She is a 2008 MacArthur Fellow (otherwise known as the genius award) and her books are set texts across the world.
More (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-how-the-acclaimed-novelist-is-becoming-a-rolemodel-and-mentor-1666434.html)
Interview by Katy Guest
When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was a child at school, her report cards followed a frustrating pattern. Her grades were all As, but the teachers' remarks gave her parents headaches. "She is stubborn, arrogant, she has no respect," wrote one, after she told him that he was wrong about something. "I remember being angry with my father, being angry with the teacher, just feeling this sense of injustice that I hadn't been allowed to speak," she laughs. "I just didn't shut up, so I got into trouble."
Adichie's teacher must be spitting now, because she has not shut up since and is doing rather well out of it. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), won the Best First Book award in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Her second, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), set during the Biafran war, won the Orange Prize. She is a 2008 MacArthur Fellow (otherwise known as the genius award) and her books are set texts across the world.
More (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-how-the-acclaimed-novelist-is-becoming-a-rolemodel-and-mentor-1666434.html)