“I often talk about how it’s so important to read widely.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shares her advice with aspiring writers looking for guidance.
“I think that there are a lot of young people who want to write, love to write, are interested in writing, talk about writing but don’t actually write,” Adichie continues: “When I teach writing, I assign a lot of reading.” She also stresses the importance of focusing on your practice: “Try to keep in touch with your writing every day.”
“Young people think they need to have it all figured out when they’re 19.” According to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, this is not the case at all. “This idea that you have to know you’re on the right path… I don’t think so. I think it’s about trying.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (b. 1977) grew up in the southeastern part of Nigeria. After school, she studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria. At the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria and moved to the United States for college, where she studied communications and political science in Philadelphia. Adichie has received numerous prizes for her literary work, including the novels ‘Purple Hibiscus’ (2003) and ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ (2006). Her novel ‘Americanah’ (2013 won the US National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of The New York Times’ Top Ten Best Books of 2013. She has delivered two landmark TED talks: her 2009 TED Talk The Danger of A Single Story and her 2012 TEDx Euston talk We Should All Be Feminists, which started a worldwide conversation about feminism and was published as a book in 2014. Adichie was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2015. In 2017, Fortune Magazine named her one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was interviewed by the journalist Synne Rifbjerg in Copenhagen in June 2022.
Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard
Edit: Signe Boe Pedersen
Produced by Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022
Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling, and Fritz Hansen.
#chimamandangoziadichie #writer #creativewriting
Subscribe to our channel for more videos on literature: https://www.youtube.com/thelouisianachannel
FOLLOW US HERE!
Website: http://channel.louisiana.dk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LouisianaChannel
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/louisianachannel
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LouisianaChann
source
