Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

Nigerian writer (born 1977)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (; born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer, whose works include fiction, nonfiction, and lectures. She is widely recognised as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature. Born into an Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria, Adichie was educated at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where she studied medicine for a year and half. She left Nigeria at the age of 19 to study in the United States at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and went on to study at: Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University in the U.S. Many of Adichie's novels are set in Nsukka, where she grew up. She started writing during her university education. She first wrote Decisions (1997), a poetry collection, followed by a play, For Love of Biafra (1998). She achieved early success with her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus. Adichie has written many works and has cited Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta as inspirations. Her writing style juxtaposes Western and African influences, with particular influence from Igbo culture. Most of her works explore the themes of religion, immigration, gender and culture. Adichie is a public speaker who has spoken at many commencement ceremonies, including at Williams College (2017), Harvard University (2018), and the American University (2019). She has also delivered Ted Talks, among them, "The Danger of a Single Story" (2009) and "We Should All Be Feminists" (2012). Part of the latter was featured by American singer Beyoncé in her song, as well as being featured on a T-shirt by Dior in 2016. Adichie's awards and honours include academic and literary prizes, fellowships, grants, honorary degrees, and other high recognition, such as a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Ngozi Grace Adichie

Alternative Names: Adichie • Ngozi Adichie • Chimamanda Adichie

From Wikidata (CC0)

It was something like pain and different from pain.

The trick was to understand America, to know that America was give-and-take. You gave up a lot but you gained a lot, too.

We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much.

I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.

You hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t shave, you’re always angry, you don’t have a sense of humor, you don’t use deodorant.

And even though I helped to clean the wounded, I had never taken anyone into my room.But I took this girl into my room.Her name was chinasa.

trans women are trans women

Please love by giving and by taking. Give and be given. If you are only giving and not taking, you'll know. You'll know from that small and true voice inside you that we females are so often socialized to silence. Don't silence that voice. Dare to take.

Of course I am not worried about intimating men. The type of man who will be intimidated is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.

There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich.

How can we resist exploitation if we don't have the tools to understand exploitation. Which of your favourite quotes by Chimamanda did we miss?

Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.

Many stories matter. Stories that have been used to dispossess and to malign.But stories can also be used to empower,and to humanize.Stories can break the dignity of a people.But stories can also repair that broken dignity

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

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