tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55197285882743229962024-03-13T07:54:04.726-07:00Naija KultureAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06807513934016114505noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519728588274322996.post-12671696430958224822016-11-06T07:34:00.003-08:002016-11-06T07:34:48.124-08:00Half of a Yellow Sun: A Decade On <img alt="Image result for half of a yellow sun covers" 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" /> <br />
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Photo credit: Google.</div>
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It was still 2003, September, and <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Purple Hibiscus</em> had not even come out. She had just won another prize for what is, perhaps, her greatest ever short story. But her victory’s highlight, in retrospect, was not her winning but what happened after she won. Writing in <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The ScoopNG</em>, James Eze recounts what Obi Iwuanyanwu, professor at Central State University, Dayton, Ohio, said. “Given my knowledge of similar astounding young writers in history, I would make bold to describe her as a genius,” he announced. “I believe that Chimamanda, who was born seven years after Biafra, is destined to write the Great Biafran Novel.” That prize, the David T.K. Wong Prize for Short Fiction, is since defunct but that short story, “Half of a Yellow Sun,” remains fierce and effervescent, tender and steeped in wisdom—alive in every personified sense of the word. The following month, October, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Purple Hibiscus</em> was published by a then small press, Algonquin Books.</div>
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When, exactly three years later in September of 2006, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Half of a Yellow Sun</em> came out with a rare blurb by the most revered writer in modern African literature, the late Chinua Achebe, Adichie and her new publishers, Alfred A. Knopf, were poised for critical and commercial applause.</div>
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“We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners,” writes Achebe, “but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. [She] knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. Her experimentation with the dual mandate of English and Igbo in perennial discourse is a case in point. Timid and less competent writers would avoid the complication altogether, but [she] embraces it because her story needs it. She is fearless, or would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made.”</div>
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It did not matter that she was personally uncertain, that she wondered whether people outside Nigeria would really be interested in reading about a war that happened in the sixties. Within a few months, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Half of a Yellow Sun</em> had entrenched her relevance. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Publishers Weekly</em> called the novel “a searing history lesson in fictional form,” one “captured in haunting intimacy.” Comparing her to Nadine Gordimer, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The New York Times</em> termed it “at once historical and eerily current”, with “an empathetic tone that never succumbs to the simplifying impulses, heroic or demonic, of advocacy literature.”<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> Time</em> called it “a gorgeous, pitiless account of love, violence and betrayal.” <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Washington Post Book World</em>, which had earlier with the publication of <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Purple Hibiscus</em> described her as “the twenty-first century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” called it “transcendent” and “impossible to forget.” <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Guardian</em> called it “a landmark novel” of “rare emotional truth” and “a heart-felt plea for memory” written with “lucid intelligence.” <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Observer</em> called it “immense.” <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">San Antonio Express-News</em> called it “alluring and revelatory, eloquent.” <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Seattle Times</em> called it “sweeping” and “engagingly human.” And sometime later, amidst all the praise, in a 2009 article on the best books of the decade, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Guardian</em> again called it “the first great African novel of twenty-first century.” Drawing equally effusive acclaim back home in Nigeria, the novel began to take on practical proportions: it began to re-boot, among young people particularly, hushed conversations surrounding the Civil War of 1967-70.</div>
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" 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Photo credit: Google.</div>
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Writing the novel was a personal journey for Adichie. Her maternal and paternal grandfathers were lost to the war, as refugees fleeing Federal troops. “I grew up in the shadow of Biafra,” she writes in a post-story section of her book aptly titled “The Story behind the Book.” “It was as if the war had somehow divided the memories of my family.” She wanted “not only to honor my grandfathers, but also to honor the collective memory of an entire nation.” Later she writes: “[My parents] have always wanted me to know, I think, that what matters is not what they went through but that they survived.” She is quoted as saying that she primarily wanted two men to read the book when it was done, to ascertain whether she had done the war generation justice: her father Professor James Adichie and Chinua Achebe. “I was concerned about people who lived in Biafra, telling their story in a way that gave it dignity and that is true.”</div>
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It soon became ubiquitous, this question: How, at the age of twenty-nine, did she do it? “I read books. I looked at photos,” she says in the book’s interview section. “In the four years that it took to finish the book, I would often ask older people I met, ‘Where were you in 1967?’ and then take it from there.” While her parents’ and relatives’ stories formed the skeleton of her narrative, she went on to do a massive personal research, “the kind of research one does for a PhD.” But in the end she didn’t use most of it, aware of the danger of politics overwhelming the human story. Her aim in the novel was to capture <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">emotional truth</em>: a thing rarely pre-known except when felt. When, on completing the first draft, it was full of political events aimed at recreating the grand climate of international politics, she pruned it, sieved it, cutting and re-writing until it became the character-driven story that it is. So much that we only learn aspects of the war through the way they filter down to affect the characters. Rob Nixon captures this when he writes that the novel “takes us inside ordinary lives laid waste by the all too ordinary unraveling of nation states.” Taking advantage of the freedom that fiction offered, she did not exactly stick to geographical and chronological facts. To suit the story, she re-arranged things: from subtle changes like the distance between towns and the presence of a beach in Port-Harcourt and a train station in Nsukka to not-so-overlookable ones like the chronology of conquered cities.</div>
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To temper the ravaging war she so visually depicts is ravishing love, and together she weaves them into that kind of balance that supports the greatest of art works. “I wrote this novel because I wanted to write about love and war,” she often says. In a 2013 interview, she tells Ellah Allfrey: “I want people to read this book and come away thinking what it means to be human.”</div>
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But more than just its subject-matter, there are many other things that make it a readers’ favorite: the prose, the narration, the descriptions, the to-and-fro plotting, the characterization. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Purple Hibiscus</em> had introduced readers to a kind of prose different from the Achebe-Ngugi style that bestrode literature from Africa. Visual prose that drew ideology and methodology from Achebe and Ngugi but, in its willingness to be lyrical, defiantly sits nearer Tsitsi Danganremgba and Dambudzo Marechera, sitting there and stubbornly facing the South Asians—Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry. But what <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Half of a Yellow Sun</em> does is to temper the obsession with the Seen with a heightened indulgence in the Smelt and the Felt to produce an even more powerful pull of language: one that nails both itself and the scenes it captures into the reader’s brain, a radiant balance of long and short sentences that glides gracefully across pages.</div>
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From the first page, we see Nsukka, smell and feel it (“a little patch of dust in the middle of the bush”). We see and smell and feel the opulence of privileged Lagos, the cool and swift life and Atlantic Ocean view of Port-Harcourt until the war (“Port-Harcourt is going crazy”), the tender, almost serenaded life in pre-massacre Kano (“the sand was fine, grey, and sun-seared…miles of flatland went on and on…until they seemed to meet with the silver-and-white sky”, “Kano: this lucid peace”). Ugwu, the story’s glue, is so well-realized in his dedication and occasional mischievousness (“My name is not Sah. Call me Odenigbo”—“Yes, sah—Odenigbo”). Olanna’s beauty is so visual it is almost real, her thinking as clear (“She wished she were fluent in Hausa and Yoruba…something she would gladly exchange her French and Latin for”), balanced only by Kainene’s mix of charm, sarcasm and prescience (“It’s the oil…They can’t let us go easily with all that oil”). Mohammed’s handsomeness and, most importantly, his open-mindedness, comes across as near-mythical (“I would eat my hair if you did not marry him. I have never seen a more handsome man”, “his tall, slim body and tapering fingers spoke of fragility, tenderness”). In a parallel world, Odenigbo might be living his solid Mathematician life in a vibrant university, a man “who trusted the eccentricity that was his personality,” “not particularly attractive but who would draw the most attention in a room full of attractive men.” Every character is memorable, their collective intellectualism robust. Their weaknesses clear—Odenigbo, Olanna and Richard’s fall to infidelity, for example—but their dignity intact, so much that it is frequently forgotten that there is one person seemingly without guile in the story: Mohammed. In the brutal rape scene involving Ugwu, one of the most powerful in a book full of powerful scenes, the novel underlines its aim: to argue, without vilifying, that the suffering during the war was as a result of inhuman decisions by both sides.</div>
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<img alt="Image result for half of a yellow sun covers" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRf42THx8K74BcYxdFf_x_DpLpxrt5RcOA9kNPBAF6yAUb6O7uC" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;" /></div>
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction ceremony. </div>
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Photo credit: Google.</div>
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In 2007, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Half of a Yellow Sun</em> was an awards season bride. It was named winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN “Beyond Margins” Award, a New York Public Library Book Award, and, in June of that year, mopped up the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. The novel was a further finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award, the 2007 Commonwealth Best Book Prize for Africa Region, the 2007 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2007 British Book Awards: Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year; and was longlisted, in 2008, for the International IMPAC Dublin Award. It also made <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The New York Times</em>’ 100 Most Notable Books of the Year 2006. However, it was in 2015, nine years after publication, that the most defining accolades began to arrive. In January, it placed at Number 10 in <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">BBC Culture</em>’s list of the Greatest Novels of the 21<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: top;">st</span> Century So Far, with <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Americanah</em> at Number 13 and Junot Diaz’ <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</em> topping the list. In February, to mark the 20<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: top;">th</span> anniversary of The Independent Bath Literature Festival, a panel of experts compiled a list of The 20 Best Books From The Past 20 Years and declared<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> Half of a Yellow Sun</em> the Best Book of 2007, with Hilary Mantel’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Wolf Hall</em>, their Best Book of 2010, deemed the best novel of the last two decades. And in November, the former Orange Prize, now the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, named the novel its Best of the Best winner among the ten Bailey Prize winners of the 2006-15 decade.</div>
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<img alt="Image result for half of a yellow sun covers" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT85NcUhXnJJ7Zsmy3PRTJxGkybPVVyTxQKEA_5ab_1N_i6rV1VTA" /></div>
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Photo credit: Google.</div>
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The novel also proved a heavyweight bestseller. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Bookseller</em> listed it in their Hot 100 Paperback list for 2007, reporting its sales of 385,000 copies that year alone. In 2010, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Nielsen BookScan</em> reported that its sales stood at 525,438, making it one of the three Orange Prize-winning novels to have outsold every single Booker Prize-winning novel of the present century with the exception of Yann Martel’s million-selling <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Life of Pi</em> (published 2002). The other two Orange bestsellers are Andrea Levy’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Small Island</em> (published 2004, with 2010 sales at 834,958) and Lionel Shriver’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">We Need to Talk about Kelvin</em> (published 2005, with 2010 sales at 646,373), and all three novels still retain their ranking. The most recent figures are from a 2013 <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Channel4 </em>report which puts HOAYS’ sales at 800,000, with translations into 35 languages. It would not be surprising if, in the near future—in months—HOAYS reaches the one million mark.</div>
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A poster for the <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i> film. Photo credit: Google.</div>
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The movie adaptation solidified <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Half of a Yellow Sun</em>’s place in popular culture conversation. Adichie stayed away from its production: “The thought that I would have to somehow oversee the chopping up and taking out of large chunks of something that I had spent the last six years of my life slaving on, I thought it would be very difficult.” She had given one condition, though: that it be shot in Nigeria, and it was, in Calabar. With its record budget for a Nollywood production and an unimpeachable cast (Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Genevieve Nnaji, John Boyega, Anika Rose-Noni, Joseph Mawle, Onyeka Onwelu) helmed by director Biyi Bandele who himself has written a war novel <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Burma Boy</em>, the natural result was the most high-profile film in Nigerian cinematic history.</div>
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A poster for the <i style="background-color: transparent;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i> film. Photo credit: Google.</div>
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But HOAYS—the short story and the novel—was not her first foray into the Biafran War. Before and aside HOAYS she had written short stories (“That Harmattan Morning”, a 2002 BBC Short Story Competition winner, and “Ghosts,” a highlight of her <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Thing Around Your Neck</em> collection), a play (<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">For the Love of Biafra</em>, 1998), and poetry (from her collection <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Decisions</em>, 1997), all of which deal with the war in different ways. “I want to engage with my history in order to make sense of the present,” she writes. “Many issues that led to the war remain unresolved in Nigeria today.” For a writer who tackles broad subjects unsparingly and unsentimentally, it is only natural that she continues to prod a hitherto largely silenced issue in Nigeria. Like most people now willing to discuss the war, to re-examine details long earthed, Adichie is young and holds a logical view as to why it is the young rather than the old who are having the conversation.</div>
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“I think this is what happens for a generation that experiences trauma, that usually, it’s the next generation who can start to talk about it,” she said. “I don’t think I could have written this book if I had lived in Biafra.” However, in a post-story page of the book, she grants us a view of her research material, most of which are written by people who lived through the war: most notably Achebe’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Girls at War</em>, Adewale Ademoyega’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Why We Struck</em>, Alexander Madiebo’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War</em>, Wole Soyinka’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The Man Died</em>, Chukwuemeka Ike’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Sunset at Dawn</em>, Flora Nwapa’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Never Again</em>, Elechi Amadi’s <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Sunset in Biafra</em>. For a country refusing to prioritize the study of History (despite a recent announcement returning it to curricula) due to hypocrisy, a shame and fear of confronting its past, it is no wonder that none of these books is compulsory reading in secondary schools. Adichie herself captures the Nigerian nation’s attitude when she says that “Biafra is a topic we enjoy avoiding.”</div>
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Joyce Carol Oates describes the novel as “a worthy successor to such twentieth-century classics as <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Things Fall Apart</em> and [V.S. Naipaul’s] <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">A Bend in the River</em>.” The American novelist, Dave Eggers, categorizes it in similar but even more elevated terms, as having “the scope and breadth of Tolstoy, or Chekhov, Edward P. Jones or even Steinbeck,” with stress on how Adichie possesses “the kind of unwavering command of history and humanity that puts her in that company.”</div>
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Photo credit: Google.</div>
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Time would, in its remarkable way, sort out where <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Half of a Yellow Sun</em> truly belongs, this book that can only grow in relevance and would, irrespective of whatever classic we are blessed with yet again, remain a uniquely incandescent addition to the canon of global literature.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06807513934016114505noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519728588274322996.post-20033901166908896642016-09-06T08:41:00.001-07:002016-09-06T09:22:01.473-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Queen of Nollywood: Genevieve Nnaji’s 5 Most Important Performances</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIwJQSRRCBUpgLiBpKXZVP8HBprTjPH76Ep4v5NBr8VhNLdIQvTZog4f_jHgh7mICWfW-CzQ4-WZCTeRYG44efkJZrOQkWBd3hhmXvwX1yw2RzF3Gem6YFLhNlIOomKez2QSDmx3jBfBk/s1600/genevieve-nnaji-at-Onyinye-Onwugbenu-Bosah-Chukwuogo-Wedding-April-2015-2-398x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIwJQSRRCBUpgLiBpKXZVP8HBprTjPH76Ep4v5NBr8VhNLdIQvTZog4f_jHgh7mICWfW-CzQ4-WZCTeRYG44efkJZrOQkWBd3hhmXvwX1yw2RzF3Gem6YFLhNlIOomKez2QSDmx3jBfBk/s320/genevieve-nnaji-at-Onyinye-Onwugbenu-Bosah-Chukwuogo-Wedding-April-2015-2-398x600.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> Photo credit: Frank Ugah Photography.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">WHEN IN 2009 Oprah Winfrey called
her “The Julia Roberts of Africa”, she wasn’t wrong, popularity-wise, but
Genevieve Nnaji’s place in the African movie world is higher than Julia Roberts’ in
Hollywood. Aside being Africa’s biggest home actress, she is also arguably the
first superstar of twenty-first century Nigerian entertainment. Here, she is closer
to Angelina Jolie and Cate Blanchett, a combination of what those two Hollywood
untouchables are: queen of the box-office and most revered actress of her
generation. In terms of star power, Genevieve is the Queen of Nollywood: the
industry’s highest paid as well as its most successful professional. A cerebral performer, her uncanny screen presence is perhaps the most indomitable Nollywood
has seen since the days of Liz Benson and Regina Askia. In her is personified an acting strength not so easy to come by in Nollywood: restraint. Since her 1998 debut,
her work has garnered unprecedented popularity and acclaim. She was named Best
Actress of the Year at the 2001 City People Awards, and won Best Actress in a
Leading Role at the inaugural African Movie Academy Awards (AMAAs) in 2005. She
has also racked up a host of major international profiles most notably by CNN where
she was Connector of the Day in 2011. With her outstanding fashion sense and natural glow, Genny is one of most recognizable faces across Africa. For someone who is untouchable in Nigerian
pop culture, someone frequently cited as an inspiration by tons of her
colleagues, it is hectic narrowing down her most important on-screen moments, especially with her BeyHive-like fan base patrolling the Internet.
This list, it must be made clear again, isn’t a ranking of her best performances. It is
a list of her most important performances, decisive landmarks in a career that has become a standard for the industry.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> Selfie moment: Genevieve with Nollywood colleagues, Ramsey Nouah and Desmond Elliot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> Photo credit: unknown.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">5.
<i>Ijele</i> (2000)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Cast as the Igbo rain goddess, in
a role that demanded charisma and charm, it is an epic turn that Genevieve
churns out in <i>Ijele</i>. Her debut in <i>Most Wanted</i> (1998) had turned heads but
it was <i>Ijele</i> that drew all attention
to the then 21-year-old. Often cited alongside her roles in <i>Last Party</i> and <i>Mark of the Beast</i>, <i>Ijele</i>
gave her a firm foot in the industry, elevating her into the new constellation
that would dominate the 2000s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">4.</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i> (2013)</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Having stirred unnecessary
controversy over the casting of the biracial Thandie Newton as Olanna, Biyi
Bandele’s </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">adaptation of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> novel</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> saw Genevieve in a supporting role as Miss Adebayo.
And what beauty it was. Her acting is stuffed with class, her composure aware
and sublime. Her scenes with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Odenigbo are riveting, her
attempts to seduce him elegant, and she effortlessly holds her own in that single scene
with lead Thandie Newton, that handshake and graceful glide back to her seat. A later scene where she stands, shocked, as Odenigbo launches into
fierce criticism of her, summarizes everything about Genevieve’s acting in
general: her mastery of nuance. Or, as Biyi Bandele points out, as her great
acting in recognizing when to offer another the stage (paraphrased). We may be enraged that
Nigeria’s pre-eminent actress was onscreen for less than a total of ten minutes
in a film rooted in Nigerian history, but her brief turn won her Best Actress in
a Supporting Role at the 2014 Nigerian Entertainment Awards. Think of Viola
Davis’ Oscar-nominated 12 minutes in </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Doubt</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
(2008): it’s less about the time and more about what is done with it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVN_nTj0kJTpWfEI0YpsQGELC0BV7_qPBz90SBlCdcVINkSzfEiZlIGgSHFke4mWpGcG9OD6MrVZvtNNhRFxqpuad2s7MLnQkaqhELgf0_qJpPxjFeF2dIVdgMAwGor6sHUfergsHrY1G/s1600/Genevieve-Idris-Elba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVN_nTj0kJTpWfEI0YpsQGELC0BV7_qPBz90SBlCdcVINkSzfEiZlIGgSHFke4mWpGcG9OD6MrVZvtNNhRFxqpuad2s7MLnQkaqhELgf0_qJpPxjFeF2dIVdgMAwGor6sHUfergsHrY1G/s320/Genevieve-Idris-Elba.jpg" width="317" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> Genevieve with Idris Elba. Photo credit: unknown.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">3. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Road to Yesterday</i> (2015)</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Opposite Nigerian-British actor Oris Erhuero in her first production effort, Genevieve plays Victoria, a woman in a sinking marriage who embarks on a journey with her husband in an attempt to figure out where they went wrong. When, in the jeep, she tells him, with a slight, sharp nod, “Let’s find a way out of here,” you simply understand the depth of her marital frustrations. Genevieve brings her trademark heavy intelligence here, a wholesome interpretation that the critic Oris Aigbokhaevbolo describes as “unwavering excellence”, and that director Charles Novia summarizes as having a “Bow Down, Bitches undertone”, a warning to anyone aspiring to her throne. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The film won Best West African Movie at the 2016 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards where she was also nominated for Best Actress in a Drama. While earning her nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the 2016 Nigerian Entertainment Awards (NEA), the film was controversially left out of the 2016 African Movie Academy Awards (AMAAs) nominations due to submission issues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">2.
<i>Sharon Stone</i> (2002)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Unconnected to the real Sharon
Stone, this is the film that exploded Genevieve’s fame all over the continent
and placed her on a different pedestal, as a bankable star and a sex symbol.
She is glamorous as the female Casanova at the center of a web of three rich
men none of whom really interests her and all of whom she plays until all her
lies come crashing down on her. In each scene, with every move, every stare or tilt
of her head, she bores a hole through the screen, burns so bright that the rest
of the cast pales in her shadow. Thomas Michalski characterizes her turn here as "fascinating" and having "a definite star quality". Even without solid box office figures back then, it
was easy to see that Nollywood had had a landmark commercial smash, comfortably
shouldered by the then 23-year-old's natural glow.<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEGFZt395v9C4WkDnKmf02qgv9vjCDBHuG1vIy5pkTy7y0O0ZvNJGqyoIzn5dOWk8ctm_obr4WMuGbvo6ET8syPaEM2hLsOs48sCCx7IMcOCfUNsjlpU8EVMRVyZTzkx9sZMRr6m_enKi/s1600/image-1-600x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEGFZt395v9C4WkDnKmf02qgv9vjCDBHuG1vIy5pkTy7y0O0ZvNJGqyoIzn5dOWk8ctm_obr4WMuGbvo6ET8syPaEM2hLsOs48sCCx7IMcOCfUNsjlpU8EVMRVyZTzkx9sZMRr6m_enKi/s320/image-1-600x600.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Photo credit: unknown.</div>
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<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">1.
<i>Ije: The Journey</i> (2010)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cast as a co-lead
alongside character sister Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Genevieve glues the film
together as the helpless, occasionally naive immigrant searching for justice
for her sister. It is a weighty interpretation. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">Every line from her is delivered with swaying conviction. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11pt;">When the Asian hotelier defends
her son who attempted to rob Genevieve, she shoots back: “You think these
streets are tough? Come to Lagos, gwariran!” And you simply realize that she
brings, in her carriage and words and reactions, a recognizable Nigerianness
that defines the film. Genevieve’s acting in </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt;">Ije</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11pt;"> will stand
the test of Nigerian time.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06807513934016114505noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519728588274322996.post-64077932503243039652016-01-31T14:51:00.001-08:002016-01-31T14:58:34.394-08:00The Art and Politics of Pioneering: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, D’banj and Lupita Nyong’o<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRCpnJT8EDFurV-J-pSvj9XRyNLD4jpEDa9PoBqw9tcHZnLW1umBCh8SSB0ZMu-GTlqKV6omQ5ZkW-Y-oGh7NLMjX0eBk_LWOdfAkK2LmbXFl5sKCFHGukcJX762OVCVXA0OvA0Akbylg/s1600/220px-D%2527banjawards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7Yk8xOSrw7Xia9Tc4sGt_HwVWdOJCPOELj2ROvEZ_E6-5gDV_TmmjTuIv8GGhMwEAfO82438GF7JJ7V9J0WtzId81njX9dzOz4wRZ7nAG8dt-FU5r6rDlSCwu-jYRavDJ04FW06XQ9wj/s1600/Chimamanda+NA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;">The Art and Politics of Pioneering:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, D’banj and Lupita Nyong’o: Part 1</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgC2z87t_oYsaKMW9O-sM4-vQl7FT6l0qoffJYZZob1-UJnJ46FhmlOS-6yTAOMNtCX1lKGaG8BffKXPmtDGoUj-O4wO1XIb65tjj0aZrdRfmqFFKKkmg2-_-uZ1JcdTMmQbQUEv6lQKP/s1600/lupita-nyongo-300x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgC2z87t_oYsaKMW9O-sM4-vQl7FT6l0qoffJYZZob1-UJnJ46FhmlOS-6yTAOMNtCX1lKGaG8BffKXPmtDGoUj-O4wO1XIb65tjj0aZrdRfmqFFKKkmg2-_-uZ1JcdTMmQbQUEv6lQKP/s320/lupita-nyongo-300x400.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o. Photo credit: unknown.</div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">W</span></b><span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">hat do the writer and public speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
the singer and agricultural entrepreneur D’banj, and the actress, model and
video director Lupita Nyong’o have in common? Aside being sparkling, middle-class-raised
Nigerian and Mexican-Kenyan celebrities in their thirties who have in the last
few years attained unprecedented global acclaim for their work, they are also
pioneers, not broadly in their fields but in their willingness, by chance or on
purpose, to break new grounds in style, connecting with their art other genres.
Adichie, a 2015 TIME 100 personality, ventured into music when her “We Should
All Be Feminists” talk was sampled by Beyonce in her song “Flawless” from her
2013 eponymous Grammys 2015 Album of the Year-nominated set. D’banj, amidst
racking up endorsement deals including becoming the official African ambassador
for Beats By Dre, participated in the 2014 World Economic Forum and became
Nigeria’s first United Nations Youth Ambassador for Peace. And then Lupita,
Lupita whose star remains one of the brightest since her victory at the 2014
Oscars for a gripping performance in Steve McQueen’s adaptation of Solomon
Northup’s memoir <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">12 Years a Slave</i>, Lupita
who is defying conventional notions of beauty as necessarily light skin
complexion and was named <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">People</i>’s
Most Beautiful Woman as well as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glamour</i>’s
Woman of the Year, both in 2014. With these milestones, each of these three have
been introduced to wider audiences, their fiery fames resting on what, in
Achebean terms, are “solid personal achievements”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRCpnJT8EDFurV-J-pSvj9XRyNLD4jpEDa9PoBqw9tcHZnLW1umBCh8SSB0ZMu-GTlqKV6omQ5ZkW-Y-oGh7NLMjX0eBk_LWOdfAkK2LmbXFl5sKCFHGukcJX762OVCVXA0OvA0Akbylg/s1600/220px-D%2527banjawards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRCpnJT8EDFurV-J-pSvj9XRyNLD4jpEDa9PoBqw9tcHZnLW1umBCh8SSB0ZMu-GTlqKV6omQ5ZkW-Y-oGh7NLMjX0eBk_LWOdfAkK2LmbXFl5sKCFHGukcJX762OVCVXA0OvA0Akbylg/s1600/220px-D%2527banjawards.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> D'banj is a two-time winner of the MTV African Music Awards Artist of the Year, in 2008 and 2009. Photo credit: unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So what particularly do Adichie and
D’banj have in common? The first is that they have both been the Nigeria Future
Awards Young Person of the Year: Adichie in 2008, D’banj in 2009. The second is
the Biyi Bandele-scripted movie adaptation of Adichie’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>: D’banj’s song “Bother You” is said to have
been inspired by the movie and was supposed to serve as part of its soundtrack.
The third is that the public consumption of both artists’ greatest works has at
different times been censored in Nigeria. When, in 2011, D’banj released one of
the greatest Afro-pop songs of the twenty-first century in the cheeky “Oliver
Twist”, the lyrics, with references to “bom bom”, were deemed “lewd” by the Nigerian
Broadcasting Commission. The song was promptly banned. Adichie’s novel was
never going to be banned, and so Bandele’s movie faced it. The long delay in
the issuance of certification for what was then the biggest-budget Nollywood
movie in history [at <s>N</s>1.27bn, $8m] by the Nigerian Film and Video
Censors Board was described by Bandele as “a clumsy, heavy-handed ban in all
but name”. Popular opinion was that the unofficial ban was due to the movie’s
subject-matter, the Biafran War of 1967-70. Yet the move by the NFVCB came as
little surprise because this, after all, was Nigeria—a country where History is
barely taught in its secondary schools, where younger generations are shoved into
the same willful forgetfulness blinding their elders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7Yk8xOSrw7Xia9Tc4sGt_HwVWdOJCPOELj2ROvEZ_E6-5gDV_TmmjTuIv8GGhMwEAfO82438GF7JJ7V9J0WtzId81njX9dzOz4wRZ7nAG8dt-FU5r6rDlSCwu-jYRavDJ04FW06XQ9wj/s1600/Chimamanda+NA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7Yk8xOSrw7Xia9Tc4sGt_HwVWdOJCPOELj2ROvEZ_E6-5gDV_TmmjTuIv8GGhMwEAfO82438GF7JJ7V9J0WtzId81njX9dzOz4wRZ7nAG8dt-FU5r6rDlSCwu-jYRavDJ04FW06XQ9wj/s320/Chimamanda+NA.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Chimamanda Adichie: her trademark smile. Photo credit: unknown.</div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is also the fact that their parents
initially had different dreams for them: Adichie was to be a doctor and D’banj
was to follow in his father’s steps and join the military. While Adichie began
Medicine and Pharmacy in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, D’banj began
Mechanical Engineering in the University of Lagos, and herein lies the
coincidence: in order to escape the expectations of their families, D’banj left
for the UK to pursue his music dreams and Adichie left for the US where she
eventually studied Communications and Political Science in Drexel University,
graduating in 2001 and then getting an MFA in Creative Writing in 2003 from
John Hopkins University. She would, in 2008, get another master’s degree, in
African History. And then there’s the Genevieve Nnaji factor: her starring in both
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i> movie and
D’banj’s “Fall in Love” video.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The ties between Adichie and Lupita, on
the other hand, cross the arts and entertainment, through the personal and end
up in the global political. Both are Yale-educated (for their master’s degrees)
and exhibit refreshing confidence in their identity. When news came that Lupita
had optioned the film rights to Adichie’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>,
it was met with excitement, partly in the way that fans roar with approval when
their favourite celebrities collaborate. But there was more to it: a nascent
Hollywood brand continuing in literature and a literary brand prolonging her
stay in the movie industry. And yet this news was no great surprise; in some
quarters, it was expected, hoped for, and publicly marked an association that
will, perhaps, remain symbolic. It would appear to have naturally fallen on
Lupita who, with her natural hair and gleaming dark skin, her wholesome
acceptance of her Africanness, happens to be the most visible embodiment of the
kind of black African woman Adichie outlines in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>. She fits the profile of Ifemelu in the novel and would
do her justice as she has done <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">12 Years a
Slave</i>’s Patsey, if she eventually, as expected, takes that acting role in
addition to her production role. Again, both women were nominated for MTV
Africa’s 2014 Personality of the Year and Lupita took it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And Lupita and D’banj? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They share
Adichie in common.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">B</span></b><span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">orn in 1977, Adichie’s body of work—three bestselling novels
(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple Hibiscus</i>, 2003; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>, 2006; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>, 2013), several prize-winning
short stories and a collection (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Thing
Around Your Neck</i>, 2009), viral talks (“The Danger of a Single Story”, 2009;
the 2012 Commonwealth Lecture, “Connecting Cultures”; “We Should All Be
Feminists”, 2013, which was published in 2014 as a monograph), and several
essays—has seen the most wondrous acclaim for an African writer since the elderly
set of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, Doris
Lessing, Naguib Mahfouz, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. She has been translated into 30
languages. But before these, she had authored a collection of poetry (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Decisions</i>, 1997) and a play (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For Love of Biafra</i>, 2000), both of which
are relatively juvenilia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Coming to fore in a culture whose
veneration seemed reserved for aging minds, Adichie’s popularity among young
African readers stems partly from her being young and a brilliant speaker, but
mostly from her writing style, a style so clear and filled with humour, so easy
to relate to in its brilliance, and then, crucially, the high number of central
young characters in her work. While most of her own generation cite Achebe
(she, for example) or Ngugi (Binyavanga Wainaina, for example) as influence,
most of the younger generation blossoming in the 2010s, especially among the
yet-unpublished, cite her or her contemporaries. The positive reception of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple Hibiscus</i> helped usher in a decade
of brilliant writing on the continent. Her novel, though, is only part of an overarching
story that includes Helon Habila’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Waiting
for an Angel</i> (2002), the success of the Caine Prize, and the efforts of
such literary houses as Kwani? and Farafina which collectively spurred this
production that has introduced what the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times
Literary Supplement</i> described as “a procession of critically acclaimed young
Anglophone authors that is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers
to African literature”: Uzodinma Iweala, Teju Cole, Doreen Baingana, Sefi Atta,
Dinaw Mengestu, Uwem Akpan, Chika Unigwe, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Lola Shoneyin,
Chibundu Onuzo, NoViolet Bulawayo, Chinelo Okparanta, Taiye Selasi, Yvonne
Adhiambo Owuor, Chigozie Obioma, and so many others. She has talked of the
reluctance of agents and publishers to gamble on her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple Hibiscus</i> manuscript due to its being set in Africa and written
by an African who writes like no known literary names, the wisdom being that no
one would read it (a debacle Achebe faced with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Things Fall Apart</i> manuscript), and the ridiculous case of one agent
who tried to convince her to set the story in America and then to “use the
African material as background”. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple
Hibiscus</i> went on to win the 2004 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2005
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, and was shortlisted for the
2004 Orange Prize and longlisted, that year also, for the Booker Prize.
Previously, in 2002, she had been shortlisted for both the Commonwealth Short
Story Competition, for “The Tree in Grandma’s Garden”, and the Caine Prize
which eventually went to close friend Binyavanga Wainaina, for “You in America”
which would later appear in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Thing
around Your Neck</i> as the title story. In 2003, her “That Harmattan Morning”
was a joint winner of the BBC Short Story Awards, and “The American Embassy”, which
also appears in her collection, landed an O. Henry Prize. She took the
2002/2003 David T. Wong International Short Story Prize for “Half of a Yellow
Sun”, the fore-running story often forgotten in the euphoria of its eponymous
novel despite being arguably Adichie’s very best short story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2007, the novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i> made her the first African woman to win the
Orange Prize and last year placed at Number 10 on BBC Culture’s Greatest Novels
of the Twenty-first Century So Far, with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>
at Number 13, Adichie being the only non-Westerner to make the top twenty. Acclaimed
as “the first great African novel of the twentieth century”, it was also
awarded the 2007 PEN Beyond Margins Award and the 2007 Anisfield-Wolf Book
Award among others, and was last year named winner of the Best of the Best of
the Baileys Women’s Prize winners (the former Orange Prize) in the last decade
(2006-2015). Her relevance was cemented with Achebe’s blurb describing her as a
“fearless” writer “endowed with the wisdom of ancient storytellers” and who
“came almost fully made.” In 2008, she won, alongside 24 others, the then-$500,000
MacArthur Genius Grant: the first major novelist from Africa to do so, with Ethiopia’s
Mengestu following suit in 2012. 2009 saw her named winner of the International
Nonino Prize and, in 2010, she was included in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i>’s 20 Under 40 list. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>, described by a Kathryn Schulz in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Magazine</i> as “an early…admirable
stab at something new: a Great Global Novel”, took the National Book Critics’
Circle award for 2013 and the 2013 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction,
and was a finalist for the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize, the 2014 Andrew Carnegie
Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the 2015 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The
novel made BBC’s Top Ten Books of 2013 list as well as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i>’ Ten Best Books of 2013, the latter of which helped
move it up Amazon’s bestselling books list, to as high as No 179. It would go
further elsewhere: it would reach as high as No 10 on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> Paperback Fiction Bestseller List (as at May 25,
2014), placing that week above—wait for it—E.L. James’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fifty Shades of Grey</i> (at No 11) and George R. R. Martin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Game of Thrones</i> (at No 13).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Hers is part of the larger continental
story of female domination in writing. Adichie’s extraordinary success, by helping
draw the attention of the literary world back to Africa, paved way for the 2010s
set of whom the most prominent are NoViolet and Selasi, a generation reveling
in the publishing world’s hunt for regional voices not seen since the 1980s-90s
rush for Indian writers that saw the discovery of Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati
Roy and Kiran Desai, among others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This success no doubt inspired her to
begin the annual Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop in Lagos, where she
is assisted by Binyavanga and Aslak Myhre. Other facilitators have included, at
different times, Jeffrey Allen, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tin House</i>
editor Robert Spillman, Chika Unigwe, Eghosa Imasuen, the memoirist Faith
Adiele, to name a few. Every year, since 2009, a group of twenty to twenty-four
writers are selected from applications from all over the continent, lodged in a
hotel in Lagos and guided in fine-tuning their writing. And this is the most
important part: graduates of her workshop have gone on to earn acclaim also: Tolu
Ogunlesi won the Arts and Culture Prize in the 2009 CNN Multichoice African
Journalism Awards, and then their Business and Economics Prize in 2013; Adeleke
Adeyemi won the 2011 Nigeria Prize for Literature for his children’s book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Missing Clock</i>, under his pen name
Mai Nasara; Jekwu Anyaegbuna won the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for
Africa Region for “Morrison Okoli (1955-2010)”; Elnathan John has twice made
the Caine Prize shortlist, in 2013 for “Bayan Layi” and in 2015 for “Flying”;
Uche Okonkwo won the inaugural 2013 Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize; Onyinye
Ihezukwu won the 2014 Heinfield Prize; Pemi Aguda won the 2015 Writivism Prize;
and Arinze Ifeakandu won a fellowship offered by the American magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Public Space</i> and then made the top
five of the BN Poetry Award, both in 2015. And these are only some. “After the
workshop, my writing changed, the way I observed things changed,” Arinze says,
alumni of the 2013 workshop. “Her success has given a lot of us confidence that
our stories are worth writing. And her workshop…has kick-started many literary
careers and friendships,” says Ogunlesi, who attended the inaugural workshop.
For Imasuen, the nurturing of a whole new set of talents is all down to her: “I
think that is her place, not the books, which are important by themselves, but
that she brought a new generation of writers together.” One finds this idea of
community in Adichie’s own definition of herself as a “hopelessly sentimental
Pan-Africanist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhl6RQLimx-JkgYQV7meSEfcRx0FULMvddE78LqvhWYImNCl1NcGaGBye7Q1GYZW_72bFfNuUk42_C4R_XcqiXo4Ix41R55FPmYVAoKlzHHdf7SfTl3JrQxdNYuRIN5N-4iiUVc3RJ_Xxy/s320/41.jpeg" width="320" /><span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Adichie with Eghosa Imasuen. Photo credit: unknown.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the way that brilliant new writers
are compared to brilliant older compatriots, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post’s Book World</i> detailed her as the “twenty-first
century daughter of Chinua Achebe”, sparking comparison to Achebe. Femi
Osofisan identifies her reflection of Achebe in “her delicate manipulation of
syntax and trope…control of irony and suspense…mastery of those subtle details
that build and heighten effect.” Writing in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
ScoopNG</i>, James Eze digs the parallels deeper: By siring a new generation of
writers through her workshop, Adichie is replicating Achebe’s opening-of-doors role
as the pioneer editor of Heinemann’s African Writers Series. The online
writers’ community of her workshop’s alumni favourably compares, he argues, to
the community of writers founded by Achebe: the Association of Nigerian Authors
(ANA). And her confrontation of racism in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>
as well as her TED Global Conference Talk in Oxford, “The Danger of a Single
Story”, both echo Achebe’s 1975 seminal lecture in the University of
Massachusetts: “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heart of Darkness</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While admitting how flattering being
Achebe’s “daughter” is, Adichie insists that it puzzles her how Anglophone
African literature has parents—Achebe as father, Flora Nwapa as mother—while
American literature, for instance, has none, pointing out in that nuanced
manner the condescension attached to such tags. The Achebe link spills into
politics as well: last year, there were rumours of her rejection of honours
from the Nigerian and British governments, just as Achebe famously turned down
national awards in 2004 and 2011. It touches literary awards as well: Achebe
also won the International Nonino Prize, in 1994. But, aside fiction, there is
a line between them: while Achebe was a formidable academic and visionary
social critic, Adichie is primarily a cultural critic who nevertheless has an
intimidating academic record littered with summa cum laude degrees and
fellowships. She was a 2005-06 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, where <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i> is partly set, and a 2011-12
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellow at Harvard University. And all
her books are partly set in the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka
where she grew up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not one to hide her admiration for
other writers, she has talked about their influence on her: from
unconditionally reading Enid Blyton to decidedly being “saved” by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Things Fall Apart</i> and Camara Laye’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dark Child</i>, to carrying her
favourite Achebe novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arrow of God</i>
within her, to a 2005 PEN Conversation with Michael Ondaatje during which she
informed the Canadian-Sri Lankan novelist that she might pass out just for
talking with him, to wishing she had written Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One Hundred Years of Solitude</i>, to
another high-profile 2014 Conversation with Zadie Smith (“Watch Zadie Smith and
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Talk Postcolonial Lit”) in what is unarguably one
between fiction’s two biggest black women of the twenty-first century, to
loving Kiran Desai’s and Chika Unigwe’s fashion senses, to criticizing the
racist and misogynist V.S. Naipaul in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>
and in an interview. “What was so striking was her own confidence and
authority,” Salman Rushdie said of her 2005 PEN Conversation with Michael
Ondaatje: “All of us there that day could see that someone remarkable had just
arrived. A star is born, I remember thinking, and so it was.” Eze recounts an
earlier prescient declaration by Obi Iwuanyanwu, professor at Central State
University, Dayton, Ohio. It was still 2003, and Adichie had just won the David
T.K. Wong Prize for Fiction for the emotionally-gripping short story, “Half of
a Yellow Sun”, when Professor Iwuanyanwu said: “Given my knowledge of similar
astounding young writers in history, I would make bold to describe her as a
genius. I believe that Chimamanda, who was born seven years after Biafra, is
destined to write the Great Biafran Novel.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPgouag9R73tRtTLwaThsOdSdlYZ5DrqioGtxp9Nox21DM0jg1hke-ZJcAKpKOUE0HivMzbZMIsU3QYeFKjV0Dq-eYM8kyRvxBGtazLg2pS4xzTYj5tWxMj3ufS_EL2_BXpKhO7h9bC05y/s1600/0000e4ea-630.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPgouag9R73tRtTLwaThsOdSdlYZ5DrqioGtxp9Nox21DM0jg1hke-ZJcAKpKOUE0HivMzbZMIsU3QYeFKjV0Dq-eYM8kyRvxBGtazLg2pS4xzTYj5tWxMj3ufS_EL2_BXpKhO7h9bC05y/s320/0000e4ea-630.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The 2007 Orange Prize ceremony: Adichie with novelists Kiran Desai and Zadie Smith. Photo credit: unknown.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhl6RQLimx-JkgYQV7meSEfcRx0FULMvddE78LqvhWYImNCl1NcGaGBye7Q1GYZW_72bFfNuUk42_C4R_XcqiXo4Ix41R55FPmYVAoKlzHHdf7SfTl3JrQxdNYuRIN5N-4iiUVc3RJ_Xxy/s1600/41.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Adichie is also known to help other
writers, writes Eze, including the critically-acclaimed Teju Cole who she recommended
to her literary agency and hosted a pre-publication luncheon in his honour to
introduce editors to his now multi-awarded <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Open
City</i>. It appears to be little coincidence also that, after attending her
workshop this year, Akwaeke Emezi was signed to her agency, The Wylie Agency,
which represents the crème de la crème of literature and of African writers:
Binyavanga, Taiye Selasi, Yvonne Owuor, NoViolet Bulawayo, Helen Oyeyemi, and
so many others. And it is now well known that she did introduce the novelist
Elnathan John to her agent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not every writer manages to keep both
literary critics and readers on almost the same plane of excitement but Adichie
has with her selection and exploration of her subject matter. Her first novel,
set in the 1990s, is about family and how religion and national political
events shape its dynamics. Her second, set in the 1960s-70, a decade before she
was born, is a love and war novel of astonishing emotional depth, described by
American novelist Dave Egger as having “the scope and breadth of Tolstoy, or
Chekhov, Edward P. Jones or even Steinbeck”, Adichie herself possessing “the
kind of unwavering command of history and humanity that puts her in that
company”. Her most recent sprawls from the 1970s to 2010 and stirs a host of
subjects—racial politics, gender, hair, academia, blogging, reading itself—so
much that Binyavanga calls it “the most political of Chimamanda’s novels.” In
choosing such big issues as religious fundamentalism, Biafra, and racial
politics, with powerful, relatable themes as family, contrasting but comparable
cultures, love, friendship, military rule, academia, she firmly, with each
work, contributes to major discussions—even, decisively impacts them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">She is vocal, criticizing Nigeria’s
anti-gay law in a tender but insistent essay (“Why Can’t He Be Like Everyone
Else?”), denouncing the misconception that fashion-loving women are
shallow-minded (“Why Can’t a Brilliant Woman Love Fashion?”), and, most
recently, admitting to being influenced by Pope Francis (“Raised Catholic”).
“The new law that criminalizes homosexuality is popular among Nigerians. But it
shows a failure of our democracy, because the mark of a true democracy is not
in the rule of its majority but in the protection of its minority,” she
observes. “A crime is a crime for a reason. A crime has victims. A crime harms
society. On what basis is homosexuality a crime? This is a law that will not
prevent crime, but will, instead, lead to crimes of violence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In stating her mind like very few,
refusing to conform to expectations of females as meant to be seen rather than
heard, she borders on the honesty and empathy and lack of apology that
characterizes her fiction: Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple Hibiscus</i>, Odenigbo and Kainene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>, Ifemelu and Blaine in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>. These were what she echoed at the 2015 Girls Write Now
Awards where she received their Groundbreaker award: “Forget about
likeability.” And she does all these with disarming rhetoric. This also is,
unfortunately, where the criticism emanates from. The Caine Prize controversy
of 2013 during which she was criticized for insisting that the prize is “not
the arbiter of the best fiction from Africa”, and referring to the shortlisted
Elnathan as “one of my boys”, is example; the opinion being that, since she
herself had once been shortlisted in 2002, she was wrong to dismiss the prize especially
now that she has become big. Her critics were back again when, last year, they
felt she was taking her feminism too far by refusing to be addressed as “Mrs”,
preferring just her name or “Ms.” Her defenders have called it just one more
example of misogyny, the discomfiture of male egos that it is a woman that is
the face of African literature in this century. “When a woman becomes very
famous, men in her field often resent that success…and jump at the chance to
attack her,” says the academic Aaron Bady who did the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boston Review</i> interview in which Adichie made her Caine Prize
comments. Early last year, in her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">OlisaTV</i>
interviews, her most personal so far, she has put in context her statements,
and will have won more fans for her willingness to continue having difficult
conversations. “The Chimamanda I know is a sensitive soul,” says Imasuen,
echoing what a host of others insist on: her good nature, her warmth.
Importantly, Adichie is increasingly finding herself in positions from where
she could lead these difficult discussions. She co-curated the 2015 PEN World
Voices Festival where she delivered the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture,
stating that “to write is to reject silence”. She was also enlisted to co-headline
last year’s Emirates Airline Festival of Literature alongside thriller novelist
Alexander McCall Smith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">With her 2013 TEDxEuston lecture, “We
Should All Be Feminists”, Adichie, according to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Geographic</i> on her inclusion in their Henry Louis Gates Jr.-compiled
list of Africa’s Greatest Innovators in Arts and Sciences, “stepped into the
realm of politics” and, according to her Radhika Jones-written TIME 100
profile, “found her voice as cultural critic” (sic). While her previously best
known talks, 2009’s “The Danger of a Single Story” for TED which has reached up
to 8 million views and 2012’s “Connecting Cultures” Commonwealth Lecture, have been
on the need for respect for racial diversity and historical circumstances, “We
Should All Be Feminists” debunks the myth surrounding feminism, simplifies it,
and then cites cultural evidences that in the end turn not into an aggressive
female-power rant but an empathetic rallying call not merely for women but
particularly for men. The Beyonce feature has now instilled into popular
culture her memorable lines: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make
themselves smaller, we say to girls: you can have ambition but not too much,
you should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will
threaten the man”; and “Why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we
don’t teach boys the same?” and “Feminist: a person who believes in the social,
political and economic equality of the sexes.” Growing up, she had been
feminist without knowing what the term was. “The oppression of women makes me
angry,” she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“I was immediately drawn to her,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vogue</i> would note Beyonce as saying. “She
was elegant and her words were powerful and honest.” It was a two-way thing,
both artists gained: Beyonce’s feminist credentials were finally solidified, accepted
by critics as legit, and Adichie was introduced to new audiences. “The success
of both of those talks,” writes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vogue</i>’s
Eric Wagner, “[arguably] changed her from a successful author into a
celebrity”. In 2014, the talk was published, first as a fifty-two page
e-monograph and latter in print, and “Flawless” was ranked Numbers 7 and 9 by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pass & Jop</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pitchfork Media</i> respectively on their Best Music of 2014 lists. The
mother album, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beyonce</i>, was nominated
for the 2015 Grammys Album of the Year which, had it won, would have made
Adichie, a speaker, a Grammy winner in a singing category. Late last year, the
monograph’s Swedish translation was made mandatory for the country’s sixteen
year-olds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And this is where, in this Internet
age, visibility counts. Adichie is adored, too, because she is seen. Most of
her new following, attracted by the Beyonce song and the movie adaptation, may
not have read her but have watched her speak. With a Facebook following
steadily approaching the 500,000 mark, she, perhaps, is the best example of literary
fiction-writers globally, and writers in Africa generally, accumulating the
kind of celebrity clout hitherto reserved for entertainers, sportsmen and
political and religious leaders. A 2010 Nielsen BookScan source puts it that at
525,438 copies, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>
was the third bestselling Orange Prize-winning novel ever, behind 2004 winner Andrea
Levy’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Small Island</i>’s 834,958 and 2005
winner Lionel Shriver’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Need to Talk
About Kevin</i>’s 646,373. While the Orange prize organizers continue to cite
these three novels as their most successful, the figures have no doubt
increased in these five years since then, and her novel could be chasing the 1
million mark. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>, before its
France publication, was noted by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">France
24</i> last year’s January to have shifted 500,000 in the US, on its way to
being translated into 25 languages; and this was in roughly a year, and at a
much faster pace than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>.
These figures—like the bafflingly static 11 million for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Things Fall Apart</i>—obviously do not factor in pirated copies, which
are unfortunately more distributed than originals in developing publishing
industries like Nigeria’s. While not attracting the publicity of its
antecedents, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple Hibiscus</i>, it must
be noted, remains her most read novel in Nigeria, although due to its lack of
cross-over into Nollywood, it has lost premier popularity to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>—word-of-mouth and
news popularity, that is. Yet it is the only Adichie novel one is likeliest to
find in the most unassuming of market bookstalls, likely to have been read by
the average schoolgirl or boy, and one that would equally smash as a movie
adaptation. Her only requirement for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half
of a Yellow Sun</i> movie was that it be shot in Nigeria, and it was, in
Calabar. But even with international A-listers like Chiwetel Ejiofor and
Thandie Newton and Anika Rose-Noni and Nollywood icons Genevieve Nnaji and Zack
Orji and Onyeka Onwenu in it, even with the prospect of the hotcake potential
cast of Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo and Brad Pitt partaking in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>’s adaptation, and despite one
of Hollywood’s few most powerful men Will Smith calling to her to say how much
he loves her work, she insists that adaptations of her novels aren’t measures
of success for her. “I’m excited. I’m quite happy,” she says. “[But] for me,
success is that I have a book out. A woman said to me, ‘Your book made me feel
less alone.’ That is success.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Adichie's three novels on a bookstand: <em>Purple Hibiscus</em>, <em>Half of a Yellow Sun</em>, and <em>Americanah</em>.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In this insistence is her sense of
focus. She is a writer primarily. In it she seems to whisper an acknowledgement,
and gratitude, for how far she has come, because she did not just smash, did
not just become <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chimamanda</i> overnight:
she worked for it, earned it. Before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purple
Hibiscus</i>, “I wrote some other bad novels which I hope nobody ever sees,”
she recounted at the Kwani at 10 Anniversary in the University of Nairobi.
“Writing is the thing that gives meaning to my life. And if I hadn’t been
fortunate enough to have been published and to have been read, I would still be
somewhere writing.” Asked about winning prizes in a CNN interview, she said:
“It’s lovely to win. But that isn’t why I write. What matters the most for a
writer, I think, is to be read.” Talking of reading, there was the small
dissatisfaction of some fans with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i>,
its not being on the same level as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half
of a Yellow Sun</i>. Aside the general unfairness to artists in judging their
works by relativity rather than on individual merit, we are in danger of losing
foresight in this particular case. Make no mistake about it, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i> is not just a Great Novel but
a Great Book, whether standing on its own or in comparison to any other book: a
reviewer calls it “a polemic disguised as a novel.” That <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i> is immortal does not diminish<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Americanah</i>’s greatness: with the previous,
it is all wisdom and skill; with the latter, it is those two things plus
something else that doesn’t come naturally: experience. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i> can only be written by one who has proven herself with something
as classic as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half of a Yellow Sun</i>. It
is an occasional minor debate in the online community of writers as to what her
next work will be: 2016 will be three years since her last, and she has yet to
exceed four years in gap. For one who tackles only challenging subjects, there
may be limited options: Would it be something very modern, embracing everything
from terrorism to the Ebola outbreak? Would it be another historical fiction—on
the Slave Trade? Would it be another collection of stories? Or a political
thriller? Or would it be a genre she admits to not quite understand—science
fiction? Would it even be fiction? A memoir? A collection of essays?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Her recent work has been “practical”. She
contributed a short story to The Art of Saving a Life Project, a The Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation’s initiative that “brings together more than 30
world-renowned musicians, writers, filmmakers, painters, sculptors and
photographers to demonstrate how vaccines continue to positively change the
course of history.” Entitled “Olikoye”, the story centered on the work of Nigeria’s
former health minister, the late paediatrician and activist Dr Olikoye
Ransome-Kuti. Other contributors include Angelique Kidjo, Sophie Blackall,
Thomas Ganter, Alexia Sinclair, and the novelist Yiyun Li. She also contributed
a column titled “The Feminine Mistake” to the July/August issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">More</i> magazine guest-edited by Michelle
Obama.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_qIWgotwoj3t_wgGv6sCEDYrKh_QAKTAhtsZX7un5m_2eTJaHaRFgj-omXsMu5z9tLy3CtuadL2AlnIMP2ZbHbAWXIdy8EZ6SylPyGbc-f8_ksa0sHnIAl1TCLxf1FPz-0u0usfv64SK/s1600/Chimamanda-Adichie-March-3-Vogue-16Feb15-pr_b_143x215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_qIWgotwoj3t_wgGv6sCEDYrKh_QAKTAhtsZX7un5m_2eTJaHaRFgj-omXsMu5z9tLy3CtuadL2AlnIMP2ZbHbAWXIdy8EZ6SylPyGbc-f8_ksa0sHnIAl1TCLxf1FPz-0u0usfv64SK/s1600/Chimamanda-Adichie-March-3-Vogue-16Feb15-pr_b_143x215.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Adichie poses for her <em>Vogue UK</em>'s "Today I'm Wearing" photo shoot. Photo credit: <em>Vogue UK</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "perpetua" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> But despite all this, despite being featured in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vogue UK</i>’s March edition of “Today I’m
Wearing”, which confirms her place—with her trademark headgears and prints—as a
fashion It-Girl, Adichie is skeptic of being called a celebrity and, rather
reluctantly, tags herself a “public person.” She was included in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Foreign Policy</i>’s Top Global Thinkers of
2013 as well as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbes</i>’s The 40 Most
Powerful Celebrities in Africa, in 2011, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New African</i>’s 100 Most Influential Africans of 2013. Named one of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TIME</i>’s 21 Female Authors You Should Be
Reading, and one of CNN’s Most Inspiring Women of 2014 alongside the late
Ebola-fight hero Dr Stella Adadevoh, and one of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arise</i>’s 100 Dynamic Women in 2015, she was nominated for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbes Africa</i>’s 2014 and 2015 Person of
the Year awards as well as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YNaija!</i>’s
2014 Person of the Year award. She wrote Binyavanga’s 2014 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TIME</i> 100 profile and is included in their 2015 list, the only other
included novelist being Japan’s Haruki Murakami.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06807513934016114505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519728588274322996.post-28859334022194222132015-12-18T15:39:00.001-08:002015-12-18T15:39:44.232-08:00Collapsing Ethnic Stereotypes: How the NYSC Can Succeed
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Collapsing
Ethnic Stereotypes: How the NYSC Can Succeed</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQhQuxPgwxYbwMkkPVUAd6kijTqgOZD-YkyHMrqn-JA2qqiM3Jt1VMPoJ1HNA6QBV2zUw7Wl4WtFHYoc1-hkyBKcOZNSQrg580AzTGXmonmocxCUjC6WcISFbMaVkTjBoJ6FE83PvMPPu/s1600/IMG-20150531-WA0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQhQuxPgwxYbwMkkPVUAd6kijTqgOZD-YkyHMrqn-JA2qqiM3Jt1VMPoJ1HNA6QBV2zUw7Wl4WtFHYoc1-hkyBKcOZNSQrg580AzTGXmonmocxCUjC6WcISFbMaVkTjBoJ6FE83PvMPPu/s320/IMG-20150531-WA0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9pt;">The problem with stereotypes is not that they are
untrue but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9pt;"> Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ethnicity is often an
uncomfortable conversation. It should go without saying that any constructive conversation
on ethnicity and ethnocentrism—as long as its aim is to be constructive—demands
brutal honesty. It demands a series of acknowledgements that must not subscribe
to political correctness, an examination of scathing issues that have
continuously yearned for attention. It should go without saying, also, that the
aim of a conversation of this nature is not to keep us comfortable. It is to
keep us all uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough to be forced to fix our
problems. To have a comfortable conversation would be to have a conversation so
predictable and so fuzzy that, in the end, we would all feel secure but,
crucially, nothing new would have been unveiled, nothing progressive to
challenge societal misconceptions. Most times, these misconceptions come in the
form of stereotypes: illogical beliefs that human beings act the way they do—most
times, negative ways—solely because they belong to a particular group—racial,
sex, social, religious, ethnic—and that they behave only in such singular
patterns. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Yoruba are extremely
ethnocentric and jolly-loving. Warri people are thieves. The Igbo are
money-loving and arrogant. Akwa-Ibom men are only useful as houseboys and their
women are nymphomaniacs. The Northerners are easily manipulated. The Tiv are
only useful for yam cultivation</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What makes stereotyping so
jarring is its sheer generalization, its dismissal of the stereotyped. At best,
stereotypes are unfair; at worst, they are half-truths, and half-truths are
blatant lies. To propagate them is to have what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has
called “a single story” of others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Stereotyping is magnified by the
individual histories of groups, the collective history of several such groups,
and the collision of both. Chronologically, Nigeria’s first problem is this:
British colonialism. Our second: the long succession of bad leaders. Our third:
the reluctance of the Nigerian populace to do something about the country. It bears
repeating that the stereotypes suffered by our ethnicities were manufactured by
the British. The British dreaded the Igbo as too enterprising, too greedy, an
uppity people too difficult and stubborn to be controlled. It should be noted
that the Igbo were the last ethnicity to be fully conquered, and this did not
happen until the 1930s: they continued to put up resistance, the most notable
of which was the 1929 Aba Women’s War. For this, the colonial authorities
nursed a deep resentment against them. The British further feared that the
Yoruba were too educated, too fixated on themselves, too jolly to be trusted
with a responsibility as grave as governing. The Yoruba had been the first to
embrace Western education en masse and already had, by 1914, students studying
in English universities. They were seen as knowing as much as the colonialists
did, a people who used their knowledge to benefit only themselves. And because
the British decided the Hausa-Fulani were subservient, a formidable people who
nevertheless posed the least threat to their motives, whose traditional
hierarchies were most solid and so rendered them controllable, they practically
passed on the leadership of Nigeria to them. The idea that the Hausa-Fulani were
easily controlled was a misinterpretation of the binding role that Islam played
in their societies. The Kanuri, the Edo, the Tiv, the Igala, the Ijaw, the
Efik, the Ibibio, and other ethnicities were perceived to be toothless in the
face of “the major three”: they would do anything they were made to. With this
arrangement that secured their interests, the colonialists were assured that
they would continue ruling Nigeria by proxy. And this was where it began.
British-owned newspapers circulated these half-truths, fed them to the indigenous
Nigerian populace. They exaggerated cultural and religious differences,
portrayed these differences as irreconcilable. They sold the lie that
Christians and Muslims, for instance, could not co-exist. It must be noted that
African societies have historically been accommodating: wars, of course, were
fought, but none could be traced entirely to religious differences, except the
jihads which were themselves results of an imported religion. Europe, on the
other hand, has been notorious for its exclusionary worldview, and had
witnessed deep religious conflicts: first against Muslims (from the 7<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>
to the 13th century), then the Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and
Protestants (1618-48). What the colonialists did could be appropriately
summarized in the words of Adichie: “Show a people as one thing and one thing
alone, and that is what they will become”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">By independence in 1960, each
ethnicity mostly saw others as only what the British had made them out to be:
groups which, for reasons ranging from religious to cultural peculiarities,
should never be trusted. Events culminated in the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-70),
which could have been avoided were it not for the dishonesty and arrogance of
the respective sides’ leaders, and which may largely have seen its wounds
healed were it not for the Federal Government’s infamous anti-Igbo economic policies.
With these, Nigeria was exactly where the British wanted her to be: in a deep
pit. Five decades on, these sores continue to gape, thanks to the long
succession of leaders blessed with amazing visionlessness. It goes without
saying that, as former president Dr Goodluck Jonathan admitted, the older generations
have failed Nigeria. They have failed their children and themselves. Everything
now rests on the younger generations who, despite the indoctrination of a few
of them by the older ones, still have in themselves every promising thing about
Nigeria. No group can lay claim to being the face of Nigerian youths more than
the NYSC: this bi-annual set of people who, given their education, should be
more open-minded than most.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The NYSC was created through
Decree No 24 in 1973, by the government of General Yakubu Gowon, in line with
its post-war 3Rs Vision of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation.
This was in admittance of the massive role that ethno-cultural differences
played in the war, in the hope that sending young graduates to parts of the
country outside their ethnic zones for a year would help to mend any
misunderstanding of other cultures they may have grown up with. Theoretically,
it was a wise decision to focus the country’s reintegration—or integration for
that matter, since Nigeria was never integrated by the British—on young people
who were now expected to contribute in various ways to the country’s healing
process. This programme has been a success, but not an unquestionable success.
And these questions must be answered if the country is to progress an inch. Why
is it that, after four decades in which Nigerian graduates have undergone this
mandatory National Youth Service, the mutual suspicions among our ethnicities
have continued to simmer and have arguably worsened? Why is it that the country
is yet to feel the impact of this programme? Why has this scheme of 42 years,
after graduating 42 sets of Nigerians whose mission has been to unify the
country, failed to transform Nigeria into One?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It would be easy to counter these
by pointing out that, in 2011, then president Jonathan, an Ijaw, had garnered
votes from nearly all ethnicities. It would be even easier to point out that,
in 1993 and 1999, two Yorubas, the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, respectively, had drawn similarly widespread votes. While this paints
an assuring view, this pattern of uniform voting should not be confused as
being representative of a decisive national change. It is progress, certainly,
but only a microcosmic progress that dilutes itself in our macrocosm. Because
Abiola’s and Obasanjo’s appeals have failed to change the way other ethnicities
perceive the Yoruba, this, rather than being an answer, only raises another
question: Why, in spite of this evidence of occasional cross-country
acceptance, have we remained static in our ethnocentrism? What this shows is
that the problem lies in a deeper place, a deeper place that has been so easily
overlooked. This deeper place is, simply put, the threatening way we have been
trained to interpret the behaviour of people who do not belong to our ethnicity:
a way that allows us to vote for them but not trust them. Because these
stereotypes have lived in our collective memory for so long, changing them
becomes difficult, but not impossible. It is here that the NYSC becomes not
merely a tool for reintegration but a perfect tool for recreation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Being graduates, being educated,
corps members are expected to be more understanding, more appreciative and,
ultimately, more open-minded than the average Nigerian. The nuances of respect
and tolerance are attitudes they are expected to have learned while in school,
and their Service presents the first test of just how much of these positive
approaches they have internalized. Theoretically, graduates are deployed to
states outside those of their origin or cultural zones or even their higher
institutions, areas they are presumed to be unfamiliar with, to spend a year
in. An Ijaw from Bayelsa State who studied in Enugu State may be deployed to
serve among the Nupe in Niger State. An Edo who studied in Lagos State may be
deployed to live among the Berom in Plateau State. A Tiv from Benue State who
studied in Rivers State may be deployed to live among the Yoruba in Ondo State.
In these unfamiliar lands, corps members must—and are advised and expected
to—interact with the local population. They relate with them through many
avenues such as their Places of Primary Assignment (PPA), their religious
institutions, the markets, the neighbourhood they live in, as well as through
choice. In relating with them, corps members learn to conform to, to respect
and appreciate, existing hierarchies and socio-cultural nuances. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">However,
the issue here is not merely about corps members’ interaction with or respect
for their hosts, but about the frame of mind, the attitude and perception, with
which this social exchange is carried out</i></b>. Corps members should be—or
are expected to be—thinkers, should be—or are expected to be—armed with enough
education to rise above viewing their hosts through narrow lenses, to refrain
from defining a whole people with only one of their traits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We must recreate our country and
this is how to start: by refurbishing our perception of other ethnicities. For
the NYSC to effectively lead this cleansing, our governments—Federal and State—must
play their direct parts. It should begin with overhauling our primary and
secondary schools’ curricula. Subjects like Social Studies, Cultural Arts,
Literature, Fine Arts, Economics, Government, Geography, indigenous languages,
and others with such socio-cultural bent should be taught appropriately.
Students should no longer be taught that “there are three major ethnicities in
Nigeria: Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba”, which implies that the rest are minor and,
decisively, barely matter. “Major” should be replaced with “most populous”.
Students should be taught that although most Fulani have historically been
cattle-rearers, they have also been scribes of the Arabic language and civilization.
They should not merely be taught that The North is educationally backward but
should be made to understand that it is so because the foreign education they
first came in contact with—Arabic education—was effectively sidelined by the
colonialists; that had Nigeria been colonized by Arabs, it is the South that
would today be backward. Students should no longer be taught that the Igbo are
“the most business-minded”, which plants in their minds that association with
money, which would eventually flower into stereotyping the Igbo as “greedy” and
“money-loving”. They should be taught the full truth which is that every
ethnicity on the face of the earth is business-minded. It is when we begin this
necessary re-education at the earliest levels that we can fully tap into the
potentials of the latter level, the NYSC, as a powerful glue for a Nigerian
future.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAKz5HgOJsTRUQYCP5_PVNcMSqLCgHlu-HZgZ5MyswMimm7jFfP5qtU0opP2o6_8QYk6ROXfdbTbfprZ2tFx9HGil5WyUmLCPiS1sPnkRhUfoGpPD_qOQtXnPD5qSA8maUPgB3rUUvWJm/s1600/Parade+ground.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAKz5HgOJsTRUQYCP5_PVNcMSqLCgHlu-HZgZ5MyswMimm7jFfP5qtU0opP2o6_8QYk6ROXfdbTbfprZ2tFx9HGil5WyUmLCPiS1sPnkRhUfoGpPD_qOQtXnPD5qSA8maUPgB3rUUvWJm/s320/Parade+ground.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">With such open-mindedness, the corps
member is aware that to say that the Yoruba are extremely ethnocentric and
jolly-loving would be to imply that there is no Yoruba person who is
nationalistic or reclusive, which would deny the existence of a beloved national
figure as Wole Soyinka. That to call Warri people thieves would be to deny the
existence of honest people in Warri. That to insist that the Igbo are
money-loving and arrogant would be to claim that there is no Igbo person who is
uninterested in the trappings of wealth, no Igbo person who is humble, which
would deny the existence of the Blessed Iwene Tansi. The corps member knows
that to imagine Akwa-Ibom women as nymphomaniacs would be to say that all the
women in that state would do anything for continuous sex, and that other
Nigerian women don’t like sex. That to dismiss the Hausa-Fulani as easily
manipulated would be to say that no person from that bloc can think for
themselves. That to say that the Tiv are only useful for yam cultivation would
be to say that all Tiv people can ever be are farmers and nothing else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">How are the Yoruba alone jolly-loving
when there are nightclubs all over the country—in the North and the East? Are
those nightclubs all filled with Yoruba people? Could it be that the Igbo are
not also jolly-loving and yet they are slowly incorporating Yoruba festive
patterns in theirs?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">How are the Igbo alone
money-loving when none of Nigeria’s current five billionaires—Aliko Dangote who
sits atop Africa, Mike Adenuga, Folorunsho Alakija who unseated Oprah Winfrey
as the wealthiest black woman alive, Femi Otedola, and Abdulsamad Rabiu—is
Igbo? Dangote and Rabiu are Hausa; Adenuga, Alakija and Otedola are Yoruba. Could
it be possible that the Hausa and the Yoruba do not love money and yet their
people have consciously acquired such remarkable wealth? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">How are Northern ethnicities
easily manipulated or gullible when, now that Nigeria is in her fifty-fifth
year of independence, the country has been ruled by people of Northern origin
for a total of thirty-nine years? Could it be that other ethnicities lack the
gullibility to lead Nigeria?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This conversation would be
dishonest if we deny that there are, as Adichie points out, elements of truth
in stereotypes. It is possible that a corps member or any other person would
meet or has already met many arrogant and money-loving Igbos, and so is pushed
to believe that all Igbos are arrogant and money-loving. It is possible that
they would meet or have already met many jolly-loving and extremely
ethnocentric Yorubas, and so is convinced that all Yorubas are jolly-loving and
extremely ethnocentric. It is possible that they would meet or have already met
many gullible and pre-literate people of Northern origin, and so comes to think
that all people of Northern origin are gullible and pre-literate. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But
being ethnocentric and jolly-loving, being greedy and money-loving, being
gullible and pre-literate, being stupid even, are human, rather than ethnic, traits
shaped by the society, </i></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and we must tell ourselves this truth</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">. It must be noted at this point
that the idea of “The North” as a single homogenous section of Nigeria—our
seeing that part of the country as only one group when there are in fact
hundreds of ethnicities there—is a crude stereotype. Most often when people
refer to “The North”, they mean “The Hausa-Fulani and The Rest”. We must cease
treating other Northern ethnicities as though they are nameless: the Jukun, the
Nupe, the Berom, the Bachama, the Kagoro, the Bassa, the Kwanka, the Migili,
the Ningi, the Rurnada, the Waja, the Yergarn, and so many others. That they
are sandwiched in the dominant Hausa-Fulani culture, and even speak their
language, does not make them Hausa or Fulani. It is in the same way that our
use of English does not make us English people, the same manner that the
intrusion of American culture into virtually all parts of the globe does not
make the rest of the world American. We only understand global situations
better and fully because we have seen global situations in all their
ramifications. We would not honestly refer to the United States as a country of
sporadic shooters alone because we also know that that country is one of great
scientific and artistic inventors. What then prevents us from seeing each other
in all our ramifications? What if, rather than being perpetually fixated on
these negative strands of character, we saw ourselves in full—all the positives
helping us understand the negatives?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What if, rather than emphasizing
the single story of their perceived greed, we understood the Igbo in their
rounded humanity as an extremely hardworking people? What if the rest of
Nigeria saw them for what they are: a society in which relevance rests on what
Chinua Achebe describes as “solid personal achievements”, something which then
drives every one of them to try and achieve? What if we understood that, as a
human being, an Igbo may be prone to greed but that as an Igbo he is always
working hard? What if we admitted that, in the pursuit of achievements, one can
easily be lured into vanities such as the love of money or greed or arrogance?
What if we simply admitted the Federal Government’s infamous economic policies
designed to rob the Igbo after the war—what if we admitted that, if we ourselves
faced this, we would give our all to reclaim what belonged to us? What if,
rather than emphasizing the single story of their perceived extreme
ethnocentrism, we saw the Yoruba in their fullness as a people who love and
look out for each other to extents that other ethnicities do not? What if we
asked ourselves why it is they, out of other ethnic groups, who have always had
recognised national leaders? What if, rather than carrying the single story of
Akwa-Ibom people as fit for servitude and too demanding of sex, we understood
that Akwa-Ibom people are, in fact, people who have mastered—who are blessed
with—the art of handling strangers? What if we saw them as an efficient people
whose men could be trusted to keep homes intact? A historian has argued that
Akwa-Ibom women are talented in understanding men, seeing to their comforts and
keeping relationships, and that satisfying sex is merely one aspect of the many
rarities their women offer. This, undoubtedly, is the full truth. And here is a
related truth: all adult women of all ethnicities worldwide want to have stable
homes and relationships and satisfying sex. Why have we turned it into
something degrading that a group of people have perfected what the rest of us dream
of?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What if, rather than stressing
that Warri people are thieves and cheats, we understood that the city of Warri,
like every other metropolis on earth—Lagos, New York City, London, Tokyo,
Port-Harcourt—naturally attracts criminals in the same way that it attracts
honest people, that anywhere there is money, there must be covert or overt
crime? What if, rather than insisting that Northern ethnicities are easily
manipulated, we understood the intersection of the religious and the cultural
in their lives, how—for their Muslims—being a true Muslim demands that one be
obedient to their religious-cum-political leaders? What if, rather than
randomly teach that they are backward, we taught instead that their
“backwardness” is relative to only Western education, that, for centuries,
Northern cities like Kano and Zaria were thriving centres of Islamic and Arabic
learning? What if, rather than looking down on the Fulani as cattle-rearers, we
understood that we all eat beef and that we all, in fact, need people to rear
cattle which offers us that beef we so intensely desire? What if, rather than
taunt the Tiv as yam-planters, we understood that we all eat yam and that we
should in fact be grateful that, in this era of white-collar jobs and
petro-money, there are people who have continued in agriculture, which, sooner
or later, Nigeria must go back to if we must survive?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The corps member who has been
posted to Tivland or Yorubaland or Hausaland or Akwa-Ibom or Igboland or Warri
would—must—if open-minded, realise these. By eschewing prejudices, by
flattening ethnic stereotypes into what they are—half-truths and blatant
lies—the corps member would have contributed decisively to higher ideals of national
achievement and the promotion of national unity, the two loudest objectives of
the NYSC. With hundreds of thousands of corps members aspiring this high, the
Nigeria of the future would have been created. But for now, the NYSC must
include this particular mission in its Orientation lectures: serving and fresh
corps members must understand that it is not about interacting with the locals,
it is about doing so with the right frame of mind, the right tinge of vision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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