Zadie Smith interviewed Chimamanda Adichie about her novel "Americanah" at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for the New York Public Library podcast. It was a jubilant exchange of ideas between two literary superstars. The interview was a rare meeting of two black women authors speaking to one another in a public forum about writing. They talked about "Americanah," the ethos that influenced the novel and the often unheard of experiences of black immigrants in the United States. Here is a sampling of their wide-ranging conversation.
Zadie Smith on the women in Chimamanda Adichie's fiction:"What really appeals to me in this book ["Americanah"] was the sense of a position, of an argument. Particularly of women who have not even a moment's doubt about speaking their minds which I think is quite unusual in American fiction. We're always dealing with women in relation to their men or in relation to men as status objects. But the women in your fiction here and in the other novels are somehow always themselves, always confident."
Chimamanda Adichie's on the guiding ethos of "Americanah":
"I've been a dutiful daughter of literature. I have followed the rules. You know, show don't tell, that sort of thing. With "Americanah" I thought I am going to write the book I want to write. The whole idea of pushing the character, not trying to be too obvious, not to hit the reader over the head, I did not think about it with this book. If I hit the reader over the head, I hit the reader over the head."
Chimamanda Adichie on writing strong women:
"The idea of a woman being strong, and simply being strong not to prove anything is normal to me."
Chimamanda Adichie on being a Nigerian immigrant in the United States:
"It is very different to come to the U.S. and to realize that you are something else called black and that there are so many assumptions because of this something else that you are."
"You quickly realize that you are expected to play the "good black" because you are not African American, therefore you're the "good black."
"I don't know. America fascinates me because I think there is almost a willful denial of history, I guess. But really, I keep thinking, how can white people not get it if you know the history of America. Do you know what I mean? And I am a foreigner. I'm sort of looking at it from the outside."
Zadie Smith on being a black British immigrant in the United States:
"When I came here, I guess it's very different in England where blackness is almost obscured. We're all meant to be British. To be here was kind of joyful to have people say to you "sister" in a shop. No black person in England would ever call me "sister" in a million years, unless they were a Rastafarian perhaps."
"In the UK I don't think there is a sense of a positive black identity or a strong black identity. And here, even if it has been created in defense or in response, there is so much that is beautiful in it. So much that feels strengthening. And now, when someone calls me "sister," I find it a very joyful matter."
Chimamanda Adichie on black America:
"The ethnic group I most admire in this country is African Americans. I just don't understand after having read the history how , no seriously, it is very personal to me. I would read the history and cry. Because I would think I don't believe all of this happened and I don't believe a people could come out of it with such grace."
