(This program originally aired on April 18, 2017)
Tom is joined today by Nigerian author, essayist and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She splits her time between her native country Nigeria and the US, where she has a home in Columbia, Maryland. She's won several prestigious awards, including the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. She's headlining the 2017 Baltimore CityLit Festival later this month. That’s an annual event sponsored by the CityLit Project, an organization that advances the cause of all things literary here in Maryland.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes with tremendous power and grace. Her prose is unshakably grounded on a fundament of authority, compassion, and an unquenchable sense of wonder. She is the author of three novels: Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah. She published a short story collection in 2009 called The Thing Around Your Neck, and a TED Talk she gave in December of 2012 was published as a book, called We Should All be Feminists. Her latest book was published last month, and it takes up similar issues: it’s called Dear Ijeawele,or a Feminist Manifesto in 15 Suggestions.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was the headline author at the 14th Annual Baltimore CityLit Festival sponsored by the CityLit Project. The festival took place on April 29, 2017. WYPR's Tom Hall held a public conversation with Chimamanda at the Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore. The event was sold out, but the City Lit Project offered tickets to an over-flow room and live video feed. Ms. Adichie signed books after the event.
