Notes from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -2012 Commonwealth Lecture :Sibulele Walaza

Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered the 15^th Commonwealth Lecture at the Guildhall in London. The acclaimed writer made a Case for Realist Literature and spoke eloquently on ‘Connecting Cultures.’

As she spoke of ‘Realist Literature’ – she drew and then grew my appreciation for fiction. I, who prefers non-fiction, took from her how fiction lifts the human stories beyond the news reports and statistics about how we live. To read realist literature, she said: is to search for humanity, with less cynicism. This, she said, in a world where reaction to deaths is to click a ‘like’ button on Facebook – to show one’s humanism. This ‘action’ is also assumed as a signifier of our supposedly collective humanism. But how we connect cultures is having a sense of how those we are unfamiliar with dream, love, and live.

I was captivated by a story she told of a certain German judge written about in acclaimed novelist, Chinua Achebe’s essay ‘Travelling White.’ “This distinguished judge, a president of the highest constitutional court in Germany, had just accepted an offer to move to Namibia and become a consultant to the Namibian regime. Then a friend gave him the novel ‘Things Fall Apart.’ After he read it, he promptly and dramatically changed his mind. He would no longer move to Namibia because he could not lend his great abilities to an apartheid system that dehumanized Africans. Achebe concludes this story by wondering why a man so accomplished needed a novel to make him see this. Did he not read the newspapers? But perhaps the judge knew only the facts, and perhaps in reading Achebe’s novel, he was taking a walk along the sunlit streets of Windhoek, holding a lantern.”

This was an apt story and gave credence to her views on fiction.  Knowing the facts, does not necessarily mean you know the truths. This, she explained, is what lies in human stories. 

Of course this connection in cultures happens beyond pages of books.  More compelling has always been real life interactions. Candidly making reference to her years studying in the United States, Adichie pointed out how she connected with like-minded students, also from the so-called English-speaking Commonwealth. She related how fascinating it was that in recalling the literature they had been exposed to, their imaginations were bound – rapt by such ‘English’ diets as cucumber sandwiches and ginger beer. I was further impressed that she boldly related her astonishment that this rather candid observation showed ‘how the British had managed to meddle in so many parts of the world.’

Indeed, there lies beauty in connected-cultures – but it is the dominance of another that we must always guard against. Lest we one day look at ourselves and find that we have immersed ourselves in our former colonisers histories and trajectories. Singazilabali ukuba sizalwa ngobani!

Adichie makes a poignant observation on the dangers of dominance. It reproduces the power relations and tells little of the multi-layered dimensions of the African continent.

It is a point she made in her TED Talk in 2009 – where she spoke about the danger of ‘the single story’, because “our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories… and if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding."

Some years ago, I read an overview about a new supplement for weekly newspaper in South Africa. It was to publish articles from across the continent. What has stuck with me over the years was its launch statement: the paper said it would “show how we lived in Africa, not how we die; how we thrive as multifaceted humans, not merely as survivors.”  Herein lays the beauty of telling, reading and creating interest our own stories. It is at this point that we too can contribute the grand pages of the human story.

The full text of the Lecture and the video clip are on the website of the Commonwealth Foundation
Link: http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/Mediacentre  

*The Commonwealth Lecture was a culmination of a week that began with a stellar performance by the legendary Hugh Masekela at the Barbican in London. Both were organised in partnership with the Commonwealth Foundation.
- I attended both

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 Sibulele Walaza is a Researcher and is currently an MA Global Political Economy student at The University of Sussex

She writes here as a keen Lover of Africa and her Stories.