In March 2014 Zadie Smith sat down with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to discuss Adichie’s award-winning novel, Americanah. The conversation, (held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture), was just as fascinating and provocative as you might wish. Watch the video here.
Beyoncé’s new self-titled album has succeeded in surprising the world not only in its unexpected appearance, but also in the choice of collaborators. Specifically the inclusion of excerpts from the speech, We Should All Be Feminists, by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. When you look at the two artists there are certain similarities: they’re both female, black, and outstripping the competition in their respective fields. It’s not surprising that one would choose to reference the other in a creative piece. And yet I was surprised. Not only that Beyoncé had heard of my favourite author – I imagined that between the stage shows, studio sessions, video shoots, press interviews, film sets, product endorsements, high-end shopping and mothering a toddler, Queen Bey wouldn’t have time to read literature – but more that she’d chosen to include a feminist speech from Chimamanda. Chimamanda Adichie wears her feminism plainly on her sleeve and is always waving the flag for equality of the sexes. Beyoncé’s stance on feminism has been less clear, even to herself. When asked if she considered …
Americanah opens with a hair salon and a major turning point. Ifemelu has decided to close her hugely successful blog, break up with her Black American boyfriend, sell her apartment and (after 13 years away) return to Nigeria. She tells herself there’s no specific cause for the move, just “layer after layer of discontent that settled in her, and formed a mass that now propelled her”. But while she sits in the hairdressers having her hair braided for this monumental trip home, she thinks of the Obinze, “her first love, her first lover, the only person with whom she had never felt the need to explain herself”, and it’s clear part of her homesickness is the longing to see her former flame. Impulsively she fires off an email to Obinze informing him of her return. Cut to Obinze who receives her email as he sits in Lagos traffic. From his reaction we know the feelings are mutual, which is complicated since he is now a husband and father. Amidst the turmoil Ifemelu and Obinze fall …
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