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I'm a storyteller and I would like to
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tell you a few personal stories about
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what I like to call the danger of the
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single story I grew up on a university
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campus in eastern Nigeria my mother says
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that I started reading at the age of two
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although I think four is probably close
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to the truth so I was an early reader
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and what I read were British and
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American children's books I was also an
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early writer and when I began to write
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at about the age of seven stories in
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pencil with crayon illustrations that my
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poor mother was obligated to read I
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wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was
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reading all my characters were white and
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blue-eyed they played in the snow they
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ate apples and they talked a lot about
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the weather how lovely it was that the
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Sun had come out now this despite the
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fact that I lived in Nigeria had never
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been outside Nigeria we didn't have snow
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we ate mangos and we never talked about
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the weather because there was no need my
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characters also drank a lot of ginger
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beer because the characters and the
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British books I read drank ginger beer
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never mind that I had no idea what
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ginger beer was and for many years
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afterwards I would have a desperate
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desire to taste ginger beer but that is
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another story
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what this demonstrates I think is how
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impressionable and vulnerable we are in
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the face of a story particularly as
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children because all I had read were
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books in which characters were foreign I
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had become convinced that books by the
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very nature had to have foreigners in
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them and had to be about things with
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which I could not personally identify
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now things changed when I discovered
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African books there weren't many of them
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available and they weren't quite as easy
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to find as the foreign books but because
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of writers like Chinua Achebe on camera
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I went through a mental shift in my
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perception of literature I realized that
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people like me
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girls with skin the color of chocolate
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whose kinky hair could not form
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ponytails could also exist in literature
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I started to write about things I
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recognized now I loved those American
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and British books I read they stared my
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imagination the opened up new worlds for
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me but the unintended consequence was
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that I did not know that people like me
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could exist in the choocha so what the
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discovery of African writers did for me
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was this it saved me from having a
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single story of what books are I come
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from a conventional middle-class
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Nigerian family my father was a
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professor
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my mother was an administrator and so we
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had as was the norm live-in domestic
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help who would often come from nearby
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rural villages so the year I turned 8 we
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got a new house boy
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his name was fede the only thing my
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mother told us about him was that his
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family was very poor my mother sent yams
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and rice and our old clothes to his
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family and when I didn't finish my
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dinner my mother would say finish your
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food don't you know people like fides
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family have nothing so I felt enormous
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pity for fides family but one Saturday
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we went to his village to visit and his
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mother showed us a beautifully patterned
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basket made of dyed raffia that his
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brother had made I was startled it had
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not occurred to me that anybody and his
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family could actually make something all
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I had heard about them was how poor they
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were so that it had become impossible
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for me to see them as anything else but
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poor their poverty was my single story
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of them years later I thought about this
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when I left Nigeria to go to university
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in the United States I was 19 my
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American roommate was shocked by me she
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asked where I had learned to speak
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English so well and was confused when I
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said that Nigeria happened to have
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English as its official lang
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she asked if she could listen to what
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she called my tribal music and was
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consequently very disappointed when I
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produced my tape of Mariah Carey she
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assumed that I did not know how to use a
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stove what struck me was this she had
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felt sorry for me even before she saw me
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had default position toward me as an
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African was a kind of patronizing
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well-meaning my roommate had a
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single story of Africa a single story of
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catastrophe in this single story there
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was no possibility of Africans being
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similar to her in any way no possibility
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of feelings more complex than pity no
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possibility of a connection as human
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equals I will say that before I went to
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the u.s. I didn't consciously identify
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as Africa but in the u.s. whenever
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Africa came more people turned to me
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never mind that I knew nothing about
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places like Namibia but I did come to
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embrace the sign new identity and in
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many ways I think of myself now as
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African although I still get quite
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irritable when Africa is referred to as
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a country the most recent example being
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my otherwise wonderful flight from Lagos
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two days ago in which there was an
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announcement on the virgin flight about
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their charity walk in India Africa and
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other countries so after I had spent
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some years in the US as an African I
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began to understand my roommates
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response to me if I had not grown up in
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Nigeria and if all I knew about Africa
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were from popular images I too would
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think that Africa was a place of
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beautiful landscapes beautiful animals
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and incomprehensible people fighting
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senseless wars dying of poverty and AIDS
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unable to speak for themselves and
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waiting to be saved by a kind white
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foreigner I would see Africans in the
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same way that I as a child had seen
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fides family this single story of Africa
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ultimately comes I think from Western
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literature now here's a quote from the
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writing of a London merchant called John
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Locke who sailed to West Africa in
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1561 and kept a fascinating account of
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his voyage after referring to the black
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africans as beasts who have no houses he
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writes they are also people without
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heads having their mouths and eyes in
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their breasts now I've laughed every
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time I've read this and one must admire
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the imagination of John Locke but what
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is important about his writing is that
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it represents the beginning of a
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tradition of telling African stories in
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the West a tradition of sub-saharan
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Africa as a place of negatives of
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difference of darkness of people who in
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the words of the wonderful poet Rudyard
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Kipling a half devil half child and so I
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began to realize that my American
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roommate must have throughout her life
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seen and heard different versions of the
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single story as had a professor who once
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told me that my novel was not
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authentically African now I was quite
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willing to contend that there were a
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number of things wrong with the novel
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that it had filled in a number of places
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but I had not quite imagined that it had
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failed at achieving something called
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African authenticity in fact I did not
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know what African authenticity was the
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professor told me that my characters
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were too much like him an educated and
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middle class man my characters drove
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cars they were not starving therefore
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they were not authentically African but
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I must quickly add that I too am just as
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guilty and the question of the single
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story a few years ago I visited Mexico
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from the US the political climate in the
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u.s. at the time was tense and there
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were debates going on about immigration
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and as often happens in America
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immigration became synonymous with
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Mexicans there were endless stories of
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Mexicans as people who were fleecing the
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health care system sneaking across the
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border being arrested at the border that
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sort of thing I remember walking around
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on my first day in Guadalajara
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watching the people going to walk ruling
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up to tears in the marketplace looking
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laughing I remember first feeling slight
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surprise and then I was overwhelmed with
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shame I realized that I had been so
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immersed in the media coverage of
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Mexicans that they had become one thing
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in my mind the abject immigrant I had
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bought into the single story of Mexicans
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and I could not have been more ashamed
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of myself so that is how to create a
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single story show a people as one thing
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as only one thing over and over again
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and that is what they become it is
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impossible to talk about the single
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story without talking about power
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there is award an award that I think
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about whenever I think about the power
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structures of the world and it is
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uncanny it's a noun that loosely
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translates to to be greater than another
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like our economic and political walls
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stories too are defined by the principle
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of an cali how they are told who tells
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them when they are told how many stories
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are told are really dependent on power
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power is the ability not just to tell
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the story of another person but to make
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it the definitive story of that person
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the palestinian poet will read bad news
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he writes that if you want to
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dispossessed people the simplest way to
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do it is to tell their story and to
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start with secondly start the story with
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the arrows of the Native Americans and
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not with the arrival of the British and
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you have an entirely different story
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start the story with the failure of the
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African states and not with the colonial
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creation of the African stage and you
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have an entirely different story I
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recently spoke at a university where a
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student told me that it was such a shame
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that Nigerian man was were physical
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abusers like the father character in my
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novel I told him that I had just read a
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novel called American Psycho
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and and that it was such a shame that
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young Americans were serial murderers
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now now
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now obviously I said this in a fit of
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mild irritation but it would never have
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occurred to me to think that just
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because I had read a novel in which a
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character was a serial killer that he
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was somehow representative of all
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Americans and now this is not because
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I'm a better person than that student
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but because of America's cultural and
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economic power
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I had many stories of America I had red
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tile and of Dyke and Steinberg and gate
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skill I did not have a single story of
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America when I learned some years ago
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that writers were expected to have had
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really unhappy childhoods to be
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successful I began to think about how I
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could invent horrible things my parents
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had done to me but the truth is that I
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had a very happy childhood full of
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laughter and love in a very close-knit
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family but I also had grandfather's who
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died in refugee camps my cousin Polly
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died because he could not get adequate
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health care one of my closest friends
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Oklahoma died in a plane crash because
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her fire trucks did not have water
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I grew up under oppressive military
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governments that devalued education so
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that sometimes my parents were not paid
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their salaries and so as a child I saw
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Jam disappear from the breakfast table
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then margarine disappeared then bread
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became too expensive then milk became
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rationed and most of all a kind of
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normalized political fear invaded our
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lives all of these stories make me who I
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am but to insist on only these negative
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stories is to flatten my experience and
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to overlook the many other stories that
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formed me the single story creates
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stereotypes and the problem with
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stereotypes is not that they are untrue
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but that they are incomplete they make
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one story become the only story of
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course Africa is a continent full of
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catastrophes that immense ones such as
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the horrific Greeks in Congo and
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depressing ones such as the fact that
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5000 people apply for one job vacancy in
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Nigeria
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but there are other stories that are not
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about catastrophe and it's very
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important it is just as important to
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talk about them I've always felt that it
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is impossible to engage properly with
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the place or a person without engaging
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with all of the stories of that place
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and that person the consequence of the
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single story is this it robs people of
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dignity
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it makes our recognition of a equal
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humanity difficult if emphasizes how we
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are different rather than how we are
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similar so what it before my Mexican
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trip I had followed the immigration
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debate from both sides the US and the
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Mexican what if my mother had told us
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that fides family was poor and had
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walking what if we had an African
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television network that broadcast
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diverse African stories all over the
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world what the Nigerian writer Chino
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h-e-b calls a balance of stories what if
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my roommate knew about my Nigerian
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publisher Mukhtar Bukhari a remarkable
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man who left his job in a bank to follow
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his dream and start a publishing house
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now the conventional wisdom was that
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Nigerians don't read literature he
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disagreed he felt that people who could
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read would read if you made literature
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affordable and available to them shortly
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after he published my first novel I went
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to a TV station in Lagos to do an
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interview and a woman who worked there
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as a messenger came up to me and said I
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really liked your novel I didn't like
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the ending now you must write a sequel
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and this is what will happen
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and she went on to tell me what to write
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in the sequel now I was not only charmed
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I was very moved here was a woman part
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of the ordinary masses of Nigerians who
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were not supposed to be readers she had
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not only read the book but she had taken
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ownership of it and felt justified and
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telling me what to write in the sepal
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now what if my roommate knew about my
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friend for me under a fearless woman who
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hosts the TV show in Lagos and is
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determined to tell the stories that we
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prefer to forget what if my roommate
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knew about the heart procedure that was
00:15:47
performed in the legals Hospital last
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week what if my roommate knew about
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contemporary Nigerian music talented
00:15:54
people singing in English and pigeon and
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EMU and Yoruba and I Joe Mixon
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influences from jay-z and Fela to Bob
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Marley to their grandfathers what if my
00:16:06
roommate knew about the female lawyer
00:16:08
who recently went to court in Nigeria to
00:16:10
challenge a ridiculous law that required
00:16:12
women to get their husbands consent
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before renewing their passports what if
00:16:18
my roommate knew about Nollywood full of
00:16:21
innovative people making films despite
00:16:23
great technical odds films so popular
00:16:26
that they really are the best example of
00:16:29
Nigerians consuming what they produce
00:16:31
what if my roommate knew about my
00:16:33
wonderfully ambitious hair braider who
00:16:35
has just started her own business
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selling hair extensions all about the
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millions of other Nigerians who start
00:16:41
businesses and sometimes feel but
00:16:43
continue to nurse ambition every time I
00:16:47
am home I'm confronted with the usual
00:16:49
sources of irritation for most Nigerians
00:16:51
our field infrastructure our field
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government but also by the incredible
00:16:56
resilience of people who thrive despite
00:16:59
the government rather than because of it
00:17:02
I teach writing workshops in Lagos every
00:17:05
summer and it is amazing to me how many
00:17:07
people apply how many people are eager
00:17:10
to write to tell stories my Nigerian
00:17:14
publisher and I have just started a
00:17:16
nonprofit called Farah FINA trust and we
00:17:19
have big dreams of building libraries
00:17:21
and refurbishing libraries that already
00:17:23
exist and providing books
00:17:26
state schools that don't have anything
00:17:27
in their libraries and also of
00:17:29
organizing lots and lots of workshops
00:17:31
and reading and writing for all the
00:17:33
people who are eager to tell are many
00:17:35
stories stories matter many stories
00:17:38
matter stories have been used to dis
00:17:41
possess and to malign but stories can
00:17:44
also be used to empower and to humanize
00:17:48
stories can break the dignity of the
00:17:51
people but stories can also repair that
00:17:53
broken dignity the American writer Alice
00:17:57
Walker wrote this about them her
00:17:59
southern relatives who had moved to the
00:18:00
north and she introduced them to a book
00:18:03
about the southern life that they had
00:18:05
left behind they sat around reading the
00:18:09
book themselves listening to me with the
00:18:12
book and the kind of paradise was
00:18:15
regained I would like to end with this
00:18:18
thought that when we reject the single
00:18:22
story when we realize that there is
00:18:24
never a single story about any place we
00:18:28
regain a kind of paradise thank you
00:18:31
[Applause]
