Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quote

One day I said to them, Where is the God you worship? They said he was like Chukwu, that he was in the sky. I asked then, Who is the person that was killed, the person that hangs on the wood outside the mission? They said he was the son, but that the son and the father are equal. It was then that I knew that the white man was mad. The father and son are equal? Tufia! Do you not see?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

One day I said to them, Where is the God you worship? They said he was like Chukwu, that he was in the sky. I asked then, Who is the person that was killed, the person that hangs on the wood outside the mission? They said he was the son, but that the son and the father are equal. It was then that I knew that the white man was mad. The father and son are equal? Tufia! Do you not see?

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About Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( ; born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer, novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright of postcolonial feminist literature. She is the author of the award-winning novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Americanah (2013). Her other works include the book essays We Should All Be Feminists (2014); Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017); a memoir tribute to her father, Notes on Grief (2021); and a children's book, Mama's Sleeping Scarf (2023).
Born in Enugu, Enugu State, Adichie's childhood was influenced by postcolonial rule in Nigeria, including the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War, which took the lives of both of her grandfathers and was a major theme of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun. She excelled in academics and attended the University of Nigeria, where she initially studied medicine and pharmacy. She moved to the United States at 19, and studied communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia before transferring to and graduating from Eastern Connecticut State University. Adichie later received a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University. She first published the poetry collection Decisions in 1997, which was followed by a play, For Love of Biafra, in 1998. In less than ten years, she published eight books: novels, book essays and collections, memoirs, and children's books. Adichie has cited Chinua Achebe—in whose house she lived while at the University of Nigeria—Buchi Emecheta, Enid Blyton and other authors as inspirations; her style juxtaposes Western influences and the Igbo language and culture.
Adichie's words on feminism were encapsulated in her 2009 TED talk "We Should All Be Feminists", which was adapted into a book of the same title in 2014. Most of her works delve the themes of immigration, racism, gender, marriage, motherhood and womanhood. In 2023, she made statements about LGBT rights in Nigeria in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, after which she was criticized for being transphobic.
Adichie has received several academic awards and fellowship grants. She was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing and has won the O. Henry Award, Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the PEN Pinter Prize, among others. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.