Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quote
There are people who say, 'Well, your name is also about patriarchy because it is your father's name.' Indeed. But the point is simply this: whether it came from my father or from the moon, it is the name that I have had since I was born, the name with which I travelled my life's milestones, the name I have answered to since the first day I went to kindergarten in Nsukka on a hazy morning and my teacher said, 'Answer present if you hear your name. Number one: Adichie!'.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
There are people who say, 'Well, your name is also about patriarchy because it is your father's name.' Indeed. But the point is simply this: whether it came from my father or from the moon, it is the name that I have had since I was born, the name with which I travelled my life's milestones, the name I have answered to since the first day I went to kindergarten in Nsukka on a hazy morning and my teacher said, 'Answer present if you hear your name. Number one: Adichie!'.
Related Quotes
About Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Born in Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria, Adichie's childhood was influenced by the aftermath of the post colonial rule in Nigeria, and the Nigerian Civil War which took the lives of both of her grandfathers and was a major theme of her novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun. She excelled in academics and attended the University of Nigeria, Nsukka 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, Pennsylvania 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 her family lived while at the University of Nigeria—Buchi Emecheta, Enid Blyton and other authors as inspirations; her style juxtaposes Western influences and the African culture particularly, the Igbo language and culture where she originates.
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 religion, Americanization, 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, fellowships, and honourary degrees. 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.