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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 to
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my 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 what this demonstrates I
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think is how impressionable and
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vulnerable we are in the face of a story
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particularly as children because all I
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had read were books in which characters
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were foreign I had become convinced that
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books by the very nature had to have
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foreigners in them and had to be about
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things with which I could not personally
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identify now things changed when I
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discovered African books there weren't
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many of them available and they weren't
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quite as easy to find as the foreign
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books but because of writers like Chinua
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Achebe on camera why I went through a
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mental shift in my purse
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literature I realized that people like
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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 cheetah 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 houseboy his name was fede the
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only thing my mother told us about him
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was that his family was very poor my
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mother sent yams and rice and our old
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clothes to his family and when I didn't
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finish my dinner my mother would say
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finish your food don't you know people
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like fides family have nothing so I felt
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an almost pity for fides family but one
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Saturday we went to his village to visit
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and his mother showed us a beautifully
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patterned basket made of dyed raffia
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that his brother had made I was startled
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it had not occurred to me that anybody
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in his family could actually make
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something all I had heard about them was
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how poor they were so that it had become
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impossible for me to see them as
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anything else but poor their poverty was
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my single story of them years later I
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thought about this when I left Nigeria
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to go to university in the United States
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I was 19 my American roommate was
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shocked by me she asked where I had
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learned to speak English so well and was
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confused when I said that Nigeria
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happened to have English as its official
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language she asked if she could listen
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to what she
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called my tribal music I 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 must 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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nevermind 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 1561
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and kept
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a fascinating account of his voyage
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after referring to the black africans as
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beasts who have no houses he writes they
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are also people without heads having
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their mouths and eyes in their breasts
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now I've laughed every time I've read
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this and one must admire the imagination
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of John Locke but what is important
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about his writing is that it represents
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the beginning of a tradition of telling
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African stories in the West a tradition
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of sub-saharan Africa as a place of
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negatives of difference of darkness of
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people who in the words of the wonderful
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poet Rudyard Kipling a half devil half
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child and so I began to realize that my
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American roommate must have throughout
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her life seen and heard different
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versions of the single story as had a
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professor who once told me that my novel
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was not authentically African now I was
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quite willing to contend that there were
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a number of things wrong with the novel
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that it had failed 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 and 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 on 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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healthcare 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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and my first day in Guadalajara watching
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the people going to walk ruling up to
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tears in the market
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nice-lookin laughing I remember first
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feeling slight surprise and then I was
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overwhelmed with shame I realized that I
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had been so immersed in the media
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coverage of Mexicans that they had
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become one thing in my mind the abject
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immigrant I had bought into the single
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story of Mexicans and I could not have
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been more ashamed of myself so that is
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how to create a single story show a
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people as one thing as only one thing
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over and over again and that is what
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they become it is impossible to talk
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about the single story without talking
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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 uncanny 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 Marie Bhagwati
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writes that if you want to dispossessed
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people the simplest way to do it is to
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tell their story and to start with
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secondly start the story with the arrows
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of the Native Americans and not with the
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arrival of the British and you have an
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entirely different story start the story
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with the failure of the African states
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and not with the colonial creation of
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the African state and you have an
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entirely different story I recently
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spoke as a university where a student
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told me that it was such a shame that
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Nigerian man was were physical abusers
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like the father character in my novel I
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told him that I had just read a novel
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called American Psycho
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and that it was such a shame that young
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Americans with serial murderers
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now-now-now obviously I said this in a
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fit of mild irritation but it would
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never have occurred to me to think that
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just because I had read a novel in which
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a character who was a serial killer that
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he 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 abdic and Steinbeck and gates
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kill 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 grandfathers who
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died in refugee camps
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my cousin Polly died because he could
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not get adequate health care one of my
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closest friends Oklahoma died in a plane
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crash because our fire trucks did not
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have water
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I grew up under oppressive military
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governments but 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 so expensive then milk became
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Russian 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
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they make one-story become the only
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story of course Africa is a continent
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full of catastrophes that immense ones
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such as the horrific rapes in Congo and
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depressing ones such as the fact that
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5,000 people apply for one job vacancy
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in Nigeria but there are other stories
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that are not about catastrophe and it's
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very important it is just as important
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to talk about them I've always felt that
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it is impossible to engage properly with
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the police 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 it makes our recognition of a
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equal humanity difficult it emphasizes
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how we are different rather than how we
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are 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 rights are chino
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chiba 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 illegals 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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actually went on to tell me what to
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write in the sepal now I was not only
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charmed I was very moved here was a
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woman part of the ordinary masses of
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Nigerians who were not supposed to be
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readers she had not only read the book
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but she had taken ownership of it and
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felt justified and telling me what to
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write in the sepal now what if my
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roommate knew about my friend for me
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under a fearless woman who hosts the TV
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show in Lagos and is determined to tell
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the stories that we prefer to forget
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what if my roommate knew about the heart
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procedure that was performed in the
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Lagos Hospital last week what if my
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roommate knew about contemporary
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Nigerian music talented people singing
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in English and pigeon and EMU and Yoruba
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and I Joe Mixon influences from JZ to
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Fela to Bob Marley to their grandfathers
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what if my roommate knew about the
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female lawyer who recently went to court
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in Nigeria to challenge a ridiculous law
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that required women to get their
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husbands consent before renewing their
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passports what if my roommate knew about
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Nollywood full of innovative people
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making films despite great technical
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odds films so popular that they really
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are the best example of Nigerians
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consuming what they produce what if my
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roommate knew about my wonderfully
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ambitious hair braider who has just
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started her own business selling hair
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extensions all about the millions of
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other Nigerians who start businesses and
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sometimes feel but continued to nurse
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ambition every time I am home I'm
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confronted with the usual sources of
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irritation for most Nigerians our field
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infrastructure our field government but
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also by the incredible resilience of
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people who thrive despite the government
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rather than because of it I teach
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writing workshops in Lagos every summer
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and it is amazing to me how many people
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apply how many people are eager to write
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to tell stories my Nigerian publisher
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and I have just started a nonprofit
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called Farah FINA trust and we have big
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dreams of building libraries and
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refurbishing libraries that already
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exist and
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providing books for state schools that
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don't have anything in their libraries
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and also of organizing lots and lots of
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workshops on reading and writing for all
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the people who are eager to tell our
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many stories stories matter many stories
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matter stories have been used to dis
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possess and to malign but stories can
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also be used to empower and to humanize
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stories can break the dignity of the
00:17:51
people but stories can also repair that
00:17:54
broken dignity the American writer Alice
00:17:57
Walker wrote this about them her
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southern relatives who had moved to the
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north and she introduced them to a book
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about the saddle life that they had left
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behind they sat around reading the book
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themselves listening to me read the book
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and the kind of paradise was regained I
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would like to end with this thought that
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when we reject the single story when we
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realize that there is never a single
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story about any place we regain a kind
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of paradise thank you
00:19:15
you
