In March 2019, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie joined thousands of book-lovers for the culminating lecture of the Multnomah County Library’s Everybody Reads program. Starting in January, readers across the county took part in reading and discussing Adichie’s novel Americanah and her book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists. In this episode, Adichie discusses her journey as a writer—from her earliest memories in her hometown of Nsukka, Nigeria to her American college experiences and beyond. Throughout her story, at least one thing is constant: a persistent hunger for and desire to create literature that celebrates the stories of the unsung, to reach a higher, clearer truth through fiction. Adichie is at once an impressive artist and a disarming speaker, imbuing even the sternest of lessons with wit and warmth. Tender and honest, Adichie’s words are sure to resonate with readers, writers, feminists, and dreamers of all ages and persuasions.

A Nigerian-born artist whose influence spans continents and genres, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has received worldwide acclaim as an author, poet, playwright, and speaker. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and her work has been recognized with the O. Henry Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award (fiction), and the PEN Pinter Prize, among many other distinctions.

Adichie is the author of three novels, Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah; a short story collection, The Thing around Your Neck; the essay We Should All Be Feminists (2014, based on a widely viewed talk at TEDxEuston in 2012); and Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.