If you have read Half Of A Yellow sun, That Thing Around your Neck or Purple Hibiscus, then you will be familiar with best selling novelist Chimamanda Adiche. I'd only ever seen the picture of her on the inside of the back cover and had certainly never heard her speak before, until I came across this. TED again. I cant get enough.
Chimamanda warns about us about the danger of a single story - when we think of a country, place or group of people according to the one dimension that we have been taught and the danger of the misconceptions formed as a result. She speaks about growing up as a little girl in Nigeria and her early introduction to literature, which was comprised up of American and English literature. The characters never looked like her. They drank ginger beer and had blonde hair and blue eyes. In fact, she did not know that people who looked like she did had a place in literature at all. It all sounded very familiar.
I'm hopeless at summarising things which speak for themselves. So if you have eighteen minutes to spare, click the below.
the only people for me are the mad ones...the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.... (Jack Kerouac).
Thursday
Tuesday
In ♥ with Joshua Bennett
Joshua Bennett is a New Yorker and spoken word artist. His words take my breath away. He has even performed at President Obama's "Evening of Poetry and Music" at the White House, as well as Sundance and much, much more.
Young, cute, in love with literature and with God? Joshua. I think I'm in love.
(Sent to me by somebody wonderful. Thankyou so, so much. You know me so well.)
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