By Mohita Nagpal, IANS,
Jaipur: The tag of an African author comes with baggage as books are perceived to be about politics and “not about people”, Nigeria’s award-winning writer Chimamanda Adichie said in a sombre moment at the Jaipur Literature Festival Monday.
Adichie, 33, otherwise had the audience in splits most of the time with her razor sharp wit, even when she casually dropped in a line about her problems in obtaining an Indian visa for the five-day festival that ends Tuesday.
“Apparently, if you are a Nigerian, there is a very special procedure before you get the visa,” she announced sarcastically to an amused audience.
“But since India is an emerging power, I think you want to show your emergence by being reluctant about giving visas!” said the author of the short story collection “The Thing around Your Neck”, a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’s prize.
Adichie, who has written about post-colonial Nigeria, identity issues and Christianity in her works, was sombre when talking about these subjects.
She said the tag of African author comes with a baggage and people think “you are not quite there and your books are not about people but about politics and the problems of your countries”.
Before reading out an excerpt from her book “Half Of A Yellow Sun”, which won Britain’s 2007 Orange Prize for fiction, Adichie glanced at the audience and asked: “You, sure you wants this, we can take a poll.”
The one-hour session on day four at the front lawns of the Diggy Palace was laden with many such timely wisecracks and candid confessions, leaving the audiences laughing.
She refused to spill out what she was working on and said: “I’m just spending time pretending to be working!”
When author and academician Jasbir Jain asked her if she was going to write about migrants, Adichie gave a contemplative look, broke into a smile and said: “You know, I was very exhausted that time, someone just asked me and I said what came to my mind and at the same time sounded respectable.”
Replying to a question about a particular character in “Half Of A Yellow Sun”, she started answering, then stopped mid-way to say: “I don’t think I should say this…I don’t like spoiling the reading experience for those who haven’t read the book as yet.”
Jain made another try and stopped after the audience made it evident who they were siding with!
When asked about her writing process and any special regime she follows, Adichie said: I have read about writers who have rituals. I also tried lighting candles and all…but it didn’t help.”