#chimamandaadichie

[qubesmagazine]

Chimamanda Adichie Reveals the Story Behind Her Iconic Name Change

Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie shares the personal journey behind her name change, blending heritage with modern identity, and inspiring

[sageglobalresponse]

Chimamanda to release new book

Bestselling writer Chimamada Ngozi Adichie is set to release a new book on 5 September, 2023. The literary work, entitled Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, is her debut children’s picture book. It will be published under a pseudonym. Nwa Grace James and illustrated by Joelle Avelino.

The announcement was made by Knopf EVP and Publisher Reagan Arthur. The book will be published in hardcover and eBook formats, and as audio-book by Penguin Random House. The US rights were acquired from Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency.

Chimamanda wrote Mama’s Sleeping Scarf for her daughter, who was three years old at the time. The story, energetic and joyful, is inspired by the Adichie family and portrays an ordinary day in Lagos.

The beautifully illustrated book follows a young girl called Chino as she plays with her mama’s scarf, spots her grandfather on his walk and winds down to go to sleep. This is a picture of family life – with its natural hourly rhythms and all the miracles of the everyday – as seen through the eyes of a child.

“We are excited to publish Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s debut children’s book at Knopf,. Mama’s Sleeping Scarf is a beautiful and moving story of family over the course of a single day, gorgeously illustrated by Joelle Avelino. Chimamanda is a global literary phenomenon who has created a new classic that will beloved by children and adults alike,” Arthur said.

Lexy Bloom, Adichie’s editor at Knopf, also said: “At the heart of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s bold, big-hearted novels are the essential themes of love and family, which she excels in narrating from a variety of perspectives. It is fitting, then, that she now turns her exceedingly talented eye to a children’s book, wherein we see the daily life of a little girl who worries when her mother leaves for the day, who turns a scarf into a plaything, who takes comfort in the warm embrace of the family around her. Through this lens, we are privileged to see Chimamanda as a mother, as a daughter, and as a powerful storyteller for a new generation.”

Chimamanda was born in Nigeria. She is the author of the short-story, The Thing Around Your Neck and the novels Purple Hibiscus; Half of a Yellow Sun; and Americanah, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.

She is also the author of three nonfiction books: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions; We Should All Be Feminists, based on the author’s TED Talk of the same name; and, most recently, the autobiographical work, Notes on Grief. A recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Adichie divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Joelle Avelino is a Congolese and Angolan illustrator who grew up in the UK. She obtained a BA (Hons) in Illustration with Marketing from the University of Hertfordshire. Avelino has illustrated several titles, including the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Baroness Floella Benjamin’s classic memoir Coming to England.

[dearatheana]

Ifemelu's ideas

In AMERICANAH, Ifemelu’s blog is called ‘Raceteenth, or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known As Negroes) By a Non-American...

I went and pulled this one from the ethers of the internet. From one of my favourite Novels, Americanah.

Almost six months ago, I moved to a small town in northern Germany after several years of living in Canada’s second-biggest city, Montreal in the province of Quebec. I am currently the only black-skinned person for kilometres around. Sometimes it can feel like I am the only one in the entire city, I can go days and weeks without seeing someone with a similar complexion. Black skin is a rare sighting in Munster and the locals do not shy away from letting you feel it. I am shocked by the noticeable difference in stranger’s behaviour whenever I leave Germany for the rest of Europe. They will sometimes still stare but will keep looking if you look back their way, and more importantly, would you happen to offer said stranger a smile, non-germans outside of Germany ,more often than not will smile back ... Wild.

I cannot yet say if this is caused by shyness or rudeness, Let's circle back in a year or so.

In language school teachers looked perplexed whenever I answered Canada to their " Woher kommst du ? " (Where are you from ?) I wondered if it's because they meant to ask me "Wo warst du geboren ?" (Where were you born ? ). I can't shake the feeling that, even if my birthplace was somewhere in Canada, they still would not have been satisfied with that answer. That an answer that would ring true to them was one that correlates with my appearance. One that explains my skin colour and my features, pinning me somewhere black people currently live as if we do not, as all non-black people live all over the earth thanks to globalization ( Or is it a colonization? the slave trade? or conflict in our homelands instigated by European nations ? ).

Conversations about race spur around me randomly, unwarranted. Racial slurs are used in my presence, unprompted. Questions, probing of and about my hair, its realness or lack thereof.Simultaneously being sexualized, and infantilized. Othering me before I've had the chance to say a single word. 

Aggressively clueless is my current definition.

The worst part is how hopeless it feels that conversation would help. To be met with “what did you expect “. To be fair most of my white friends never understood why I was uncomfortable with some of their behaviour. It's the thing of how can you have a constructive conversation with someone about something that they do not believe exists. It is frustrating to be so well acquainted with the quirks and habits of white people, and have them be so clueless about mine. It is frustrating to explain to someone you love how to better take care of you and be met with incredulity and resistance. I find that expecting a human being to babysit another one into accepting them as an equal, is violent. Understated violence, not only when it comes to race but in all interpersonal relationships ... The stubborn blindness is hard to respect, I cannot see how it isn't feigned. These days I find myself dreading confronting people about my needs, I simply won't do it, if they don't care by now, to me it sounds like they are actively choosing not to. I feel more should be said about personal initiative.

Even in the instances of acquaintance and casualness, speaking less maybe, and listening more. It'll reduce by half the chances of saying something stupid at least. Just throwing suggestions out there, I am desperate.

[i-cordelia]

"I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white.

But I was Igbo before the white man came."

- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[omotoyosiodukomaiya]

To choose to write is to reject silence

~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[the-inkdrinker]

“My own definition is a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[travelomat]

[thingsreadinthedark]

Wow.. just wow!