{"id":176459235,"date":"2015-08-30T01:53:35","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T06:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176459235"},"modified":"2015-08-30T01:53:35","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T06:53:35","slug":"audio-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-and-zadie-smith-on-race-writing-and-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2015\/08\/30\/audio-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-and-zadie-smith-on-race-writing-and-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"AUDIO: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith on Race, Writing, and Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_176459236\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PODCAST.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-176459236\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-176459236\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PODCAST.jpg\" alt=\"August 25, 2015\" width=\"190\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PODCAST.jpg 190w, http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PODCAST-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 190px) 100vw, 190px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-176459236\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;\"><strong>August 25, 2015<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/zadie-chimamanda.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-176459280\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/zadie-chimamanda.jpg\" alt=\"zadie &amp; chimamanda\" width=\"600\" height=\"344\" srcset=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/zadie-chimamanda.jpg 750w, http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/zadie-chimamanda-300x172.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/h1>\n<h1 id=\"page-title\" class=\"title\">Podcast #75:<\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 36pt;\">Chimamanda Ngozi<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 36pt;\"> Adichie <\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 36pt;\">and Zadie Smith <\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 36pt;\">on Race, Writing, and<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 36pt;\"> Relationships<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\"><span class=\"blog-byline\"><span class=\"blog-author\">by Tracy O&#8217;Neill, Social Media Curator<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div id=\"block-nypl_content-15\" class=\"block block-nypl_content block-addthis\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"block-system-main\" class=\"block block-system block-system-main\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div id=\"node-314438\" class=\"node node-blog\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/220689562&amp;color=d62828&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">There are few authors as smart, powerful, and visionary as\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/nypl.bibliocommons.com\/search?t=smart&amp;search_category=keyword&amp;q=Chimamanda%20Ngozi%20Adichie\">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/nypl.bibliocommons.com\/search?t=smart&amp;search_category=keyword&amp;q=Zadie%20Smith\">Zadie Smith<\/a>. Adichie&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Americanah<\/em>\u00a0won the 2013\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" title=\"National Book Critics Circle Award\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Book_Critics_Circle_Award\">National Book Critics Circle Award<\/a>\u00a0with its delicious satire, while Smith took the Orange Prize for her moving transatlantic novel\u00a0<em>On Beauty.\u00a0<\/em>This week, we&#8217;re proud to present Adichie and Smith discussing clear writing, race, and relationships\u00a0on the New York Public Library Podcast.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_176459237\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/adichiesmith_banner2.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-176459237\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-176459237\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/adichiesmith_banner2.jpg\" alt=\"Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Adichie\" width=\"600\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/adichiesmith_banner2.jpg 600w, http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/adichiesmith_banner2-300x158.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-176459237\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Adichie<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Not only did\u00a0Adichie describe\u00a0her aesthetic as one revolving around clarity, she also noted the pitfalls of falling for convoluted styling:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Clarity&#8217;s important to me. I forget who said that\u00a0&#8216;Prose should be as clear as a window pane.&#8217; I&#8217;m very much in that school, and it&#8217;s the kind of fiction I like to read. The kind of writing that I like to read is writing that is clear. I think it&#8217;s very easy to confuse something that&#8217;s badly written as something that&#8217;s somehow deep. If something is incomprehensible and the sentences are bad, we&#8217;re supposed to say, &#8216;Oh that&#8217;s really deep.&#8217; It&#8217;s not the kind of fiction I like to read, so I guess maybe when I&#8217;m editing I&#8217;m thinking about that. I&#8217;m thinking that the sentences I really admire are sentences that are lucid.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Many admirers of\u00a0<em>Americanah<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Half of a Yellow Sun<\/em>\u00a0have observed the pleasures of reading about strong female characters moving through relationships.\u00a0Adichie sees the romantic relationships in her fiction as diametrically opposed to the paradigm of the Mills and Boon romance novel:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;It took me a while to realize I really didn&#8217;t like the Mills and Boon format, where the man decides. It&#8217;s sort of the destiny of the relationship is in the hands of the man. And it&#8217;s okay as well if they meet and don&#8217;t like each other, then he grabs her at some point and she melts. You know that idea that a woman can&#8217;t own her sexuality, can&#8217;t own her choices? So this is the anti-Mills and Boon in many ways.\u00a0The women in my world don&#8217;t have to wait because they&#8217;re women.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">Adichie also parsed the differences in understandings of blackness in Nigeria and the United States, including the way in which African-American blacks might be seen differently than African blacks by white Americans and the way in which racial difference might be expressed differently between the two countries:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;In Nigeria, people will say &#8216;sister,&#8217; but they don&#8217;t mean it racially, so I think it&#8217;s the understanding that it&#8217;s racial that for me and for many immigrants from West Africa, it&#8217;s just a little off-putting. It&#8217;s a little disorienting because you don&#8217;t quite get it. And I think it also has to be said that you very quickly realize that you&#8217;re expected to play &#8216;The Good Black&#8217;\u00a0because you&#8217;re not African-American; therefore, you&#8217;re &#8216;The Good Black.&#8217; White people will say, &#8216;Oh, but you&#8217;re different!&#8217; and you&#8217;re not supposed to be, instead of being furious, because that&#8217;s really an insult, you&#8217;re supposed to be happy&#8230; There are many Nigerians who don&#8217;t get it. There are also many Nigerian immigrants who are raising children here, children who are very affected by race because America is a society that&#8217;s steeped in race whether we like it or not, but somehow the parents are oblivious. It&#8217;s one of the things I wanted to explore in the novel. They&#8217;re just completely oblivious, so the kid is the only black kid in an all-white school in Maine and the parent thinks it doesn&#8217;t matter.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14pt;\">You can subscribe to the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/new-york-public-library-podcast\/id804982781?mt=2\">New York Public Library Podcast<\/a>\u00a0to hear more conversations with wonderful artists, writers, and intellectuals. Join the conversation today!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&gt;via:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypl.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/25\/podcast-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-zadie-smith?hspace=314302\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.nypl.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/25\/podcast-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-zadie-smith?hspace=314302<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Podcast #75: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith on Race, Writing, and Relationships by Tracy O&#8217;Neill, Social Media Curator There are few authors as smart, powerful, and visionary as\u00a0Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u00a0and\u00a0Zadie Smith. Adichie&#8217;s\u00a0Americanah\u00a0won the 2013\u00a0National Book Critics Circle Award\u00a0with its delicious satire, while Smith took the Orange Prize for her moving transatlantic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176459235"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176459235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176459235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176459281,"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176459235\/revisions\/176459281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176459235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176459235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176459235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}