CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: Teller of Tales

By Marie Arana


Her sister calls her agadi nwanyi, which is Igbo for old woman. She is hardly old at 29, but Chimamanda Adichie has a deep wisdom about her -- a centeredness -- that few possess. "I've always felt old in my head," she says. She has worried that her youth was a liability, "especially in Nigeria where it is easy to dismiss the young. More so if that 'young' is female." No one dismisses her now. Shortlisted for Britain's coveted Orange Prize for "Purple Hibiscus" (2003), she has just taken the prize for "Half of a Yellow Sun."

She grew up reading books about English children frolicking in the countryside. "I absolutely identified with those white boys and girls." But when she turned 10 and read Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart," about the clash between Igbo tradition and the British colonial way of life, everything changed: "I realized that people who looked like me could live in books." She has been writing about Africa ever since.

As the bright, studious child of academics, she was expected to work toward a "useful" career, and at the University of Nigeria, where both of her parents worked, she followed their advice and became a medical student. But she quickly tired of it. When her sister, then a practicing physician in Connecticut, urged her to come to America, she leapt at the chance. At Drexel and Eastern Connecticut State universities, she studied communications, political science, history -- anything but literature. "I wanted to keep my mind open. I didn't want to stifle myself, think like a critic." But she was reading contemporary fiction voraciously -- from Anne Tyler to Philip Roth.

By the time she graduated, she had written most of "Purple Hibiscus," a profoundly moving novel about a Nigerian family struggling under the cruelty of a raging, evangelist father. This year's "Half of a Yellow Sun" is a gripping tale about the bloody civil war that followed the creation of the short-lived Republic of Biafra -- a war that took place a decade before she was born.

"Every family has a child who is interested in the story of who they are," she says. The wars. The suffering. The sudden events that forever alter their lives. "I am that child."

Asked what her father said to her when she won the Orange Prize, she answers, "He's a very reserved and quiet man, very calm and stoic, and when I called him from London to tell him I'd won, I thought he'd say, 'Oh, well done.' But no. He started singing an Igbo thank you song."

And Chimamanda Adichie -- the wise agadi nwanyi -- cried like a little girl.


N.B:
Marie Arana is editor of The Washington Post Book World.


This news arrived on: 06/15/2007

From the ArcaMax Publishing, Washington Post Book Reviews Newsletter:

I read her 2nd novel, "Half of a yellow sun", she is a fine writer, and the story line was indeed a page turner. But I stopped reading it when I read the derogatory sexual term she used in her book. Dont want to mention it, but all what I have to ask, is, "What ever happened to clean literature"? Words that are forbidden to utter in public, are now accepted in the printed version. Na wao!

orinkila big mouth!!what do you have with adichie that you take so much time to paste glowing reviews about her?.yes,she is good but i will wait to see what she is gonna do after winning the prize before calling her a genius!ben okri won the booker in '91 and ever since then went into oblivion,or as far as i am concerned,

we need to stop depending on the west prizes to validate our writers. whether she wins or not has nothing to do with her talent

creatorjc:

orinkila big mouth!!what do you have with adichie that you take so much time to paste glowing reviews about her?.yes,she is good but i will wait to see what she is going to do after winning the prize before calling her a genius!ben okri won the booker in '91 and ever since then went into oblivion,or as far as i am concerned,

Creatorjc,

Orikinla is the Yoruba name for higher praise.

To address your ignorance of Ben Okri, below is an updated biography.

Ben Okri

Poet and novelist Ben Okri was born in 1959 in Minna, northern Nigeria, to an Igbo mother and Urhobo father. He grew up in London before returning to Nigeria with his family in 1968. Much of his early fiction explores the political violence that he witnessed at first hand during the civil war in Nigeria. He left the country when a grant from the Nigerian government enabled him to read Comparative Literature at Essex University in England.

He was poetry editor for West Africa magazine between 1983 and 1986 and broadcast regularly for the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985. He was appointed Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge in 1991, a post he held until 1993. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Westminster (1997) and Essex (2002).

His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981), are both set in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young men struggling to make sense of the disintegration and chaos happening in both their family and country. The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), are set in Lagos and London.

In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road (1991). Set in a Nigerian village, this is the first in a trilogy of novels which tell the story of Azaro, a spirit child. Azaro's narrative is continued in Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). Other recent fiction includes Astonishing the Gods (1995) and Dangerous Love (1996), which was awarded the Premio Palmi (Italy) in 2000. His latest novels are In Arcadia (2002) and Starbook (2007).

A collection of poems, An African Elegy, was published in 1992, and an epic poem, Mental Flight, in 1999. A collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, was published in 1997. Ben Okri is also the author of a play, In Exilus.

Ben Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN, a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre, and was awarded an OBE in 2001. He lives in London.

Genres (in alphabetical order)
Drama, Essays, Fiction, Poetry, Short stories

Bibliography
Flowers and Shadows Longman, 1980


The Landscapes Within Longman, 1981


Incidents at the Shrine Heinemann, 1986


Stars of the New Curfew Secker & Warburg, 1988


The Famished Road Cape, 1991


An African Elegy Cape, 1992


Songs of Enchantment Cape, 1993


Astonishing the Gods Phoenix House, 1995


Birds of Heaven Orion, 1995


Dangerous Love Phoenix House, 1996


A Way of Being Free Phoenix House, 1997


Infinite Riches Phoenix House, 1998


Mental Fight Phoenix House, 1999


In Arcadia Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002


Starbook Rider & Co., 2007


Prizes and awards
1987 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best Book) Incidents at the Shrine


1987 Paris Review/Aga Khan Prize for Fiction Incidents at the Shrine


1988 Guardian Fiction Prize (shortlist) Stars of the New Curfew


1991 Booker Prize for Fiction The Famished Road


1993 Chianti Ruffino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize The Famished Road


1994 Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy) The Famished Road


1995 Crystal Award (World Economic Forum)


2000 Premio Palmi (Italy) Dangerous Love


2001 OBE



Ben Okri is the next Nigerian writer most likely to win the Nobel.

I predicted the greatness of Okri since 1981 when he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows and was making waves as a teenage novelist and I was the leading teenage dramatist ( see the Times International news magazine of 1980 at the National Library in Lagos, Nigeria, or the Daily Times Library).
Ben Okri, Henry Atenaga and Chima Eke were the most promising young writers in the early 1980s. Okri is the most accomplished. I don't know the whereabouts of Henry since he interviewed me in 1980.

I agree with you@Obong, we need to quit looking upto the western world to validate our literature/writing skills. That is the same reasoning that I have proposed that our own African movies should not be judged solely by western standards, or even attempt to diminish its influence, because of western movies. This is modern day colonialism. When people say Achebe has been denied the Nobel Prize, and he is bitter about it, I am like "Why should he even care if he wins the award or not, when his first novel is more popular than some of the contemporary works awarded the prize. Lets start our own prizes.