Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quote

You know, we live in an ass-licking economy. The biggest problem in this country is not corruption. The problem is that there are many qualified people who are not where they are supposed to be because they won’t lick anybody’s ass, or they don’t know which ass to lick or they don’t even know how to lick an ass. I’m lucky to be licking the right ass. She smiled. It’s just luck. Oga said I was well brought up, that I was not like all the Lagos girls who sleep with him on the first night and the next morning give him a list of what they want him to buy. I slept with him on the first night but I did not ask for anything, which was stupid of me now that I think of it, but I did not sleep with him because I wanted something. Ah, this thing called power. I was attracted to him even with his teeth like Dracula. I was attracted to his power.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You know, we live in an ass-licking economy. The biggest problem in this country is not corruption. The problem is that there are many qualified people who are not where they are supposed to be because they won’t lick anybody’s ass, or they don’t know which ass to lick or they don’t even know how to lick an ass. I’m lucky to be licking the right ass. She smiled. It’s just luck. Oga said I was well brought up, that I was not like all the Lagos girls who sleep with him on the first night and the next morning give him a list of what they want him to buy. I slept with him on the first night but I did not ask for anything, which was stupid of me now that I think of it, but I did not sleep with him because I wanted something. Ah, this thing called power. I was attracted to him even with his teeth like Dracula. I was attracted to his power.

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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, 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.