Adichie’s first TEDTalk, “The Danger of A Single Story,” helped to catapult her to the main stage, delivered in July of 2009 in Oxford, England. At the time of the talk, Adichie had published her first novel Purple Hibiscus, her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun, and her collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck. These works all gained substantial literary recognition, but the work of this TEDTalk helped to solidify Adichie’s status as a true public figure. The talk focuses on Adichie’s own personal experiences in finding her voice, urging people to open up their perspective as it relates to traditionally stereotyped elements of reality, specifically preconceptions related to Africa. She fights against the single story narrative, seeking to create understanding that recognizes the shortcomings of stereotypes and allows for a more comprehensive understanding of people.
Despite my belief that this TEDTalk posits Adichie’s status as a public persona, she begins the talk by telling the audience “I am a storyteller.” This line might create a sense of comfort for the audience, transitioning Adichie’s role as an author seamlessly into this public talk. It also presents the possibility of her words transacting across these various forms. With this talk, Adichie begins to create a networked sense of self, one that recognizes its existence on other mediums and pays respect to those distinct moments, blending them across forms.
Adichie also underscores the affective nature of stories in this talk, setting up the merits of her persona across forms. She makes mention of “how vulnerable and impressionable we are in the face of a story,” partially advising for how her stories should be read but also cautioning readers in their approach. Amidst this power of stories, it remains crucial to recognize our positionality as readers and ensure that we are not losing ourselves in just one perspective.
Various moments throughout this TEDTalk connect to scenes that can be found in Adichie’s novels and short stories. The loyal reader see the ways in which Adichie makes connections across forms, creating a hyperlinked sense of identity that readers will find easily navigable.
This creation of identity is done in subtle ways, though. For example, in her TEDTalk she makes reference to a friend who tragically died in a plane crash. The avid Adichie reader will inevitably make connections between this personal anecdote and a story from The Thing Around your Neck that focuses on a friend lost in a similar accident. Given the proximity of publication between The Thing Around your Neck and the delivery of this TEDTalk, it makes sense that Adichie would make these connections, creating a sort of familiarity for readers and audience members. These connections across moments create different opportunities to interact with Adichie’s work, much of the effect seen throughout Americanah. By offering these different moments of encounter across time, readers gain investment in each interaction, taking ownership of their reading or viewing experience and further considering their own stake in the moment. Adichie’s writing and public persona lends itself to this new possiblity.
Further moments of overlap come in Adichie’s description of the specific dangers inherent in prioritizing the single story. She discusses the role of a single story and the power dynamics inherent in representation. “If you show people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, that is what they become.” This description inevitably connects to the role of stereotypes. Adichie addresses this role in the talk, saying of stereotypes: “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” This idea of the potential for multiple stories connects to something Adichie urges for throughout Americanah: the possiblity of multiple selves. Throughout “The Danger of a Single Story” Adichie urges for an understanding of place and personhood that recognizes the existence of multiple stories within a single person. We cannot reduce people to just one narrative, just as we cannot reduce a sense of self to one encounter. This need for comprehensive understanding underscores many of the things that Americanah seems to necessitate. Adichie urges her readership to find a deeper, nuanced understanding of place and self, one informed by numerous narratives as opposed to one easily digestible limited perspective.
She underscores this point later in the talk, saying that it is “impossible to engage with a story or a place without engaging with all of the stories of that person or place.” Urging for multiplicity lends itself to an understanding of the character throughout Americanah.
Further connections to Americanah come with Adichie’s description of a woman who discusses her novels with her. She describes the woman’s boldness as she expresses her appreciation for Adichie’s work, then tells her she must write a sequel and makes recommendations as to how this sequel will go. Adichie expresses her gratitude for the woman and says “She had not only read the book, but she took had taken ownership of it and felt justified in telling me what to write in the sequel.” This engagement with the text is reminiscent of the exact ways Adichie presents Americanah to her readership. She encourages immersive engagement with the text, forcing readers to complicate their understanding of the text and creating a unique reading experience. With the use of blog writing and other non-traditional formatting throughout the novel, Adichie invites readers to engage in new ways and take ownership of this text to a certain degree. The novel invites readers to choose their own adventure throughout, creating a distinct reading experience across each individual reading.
Further moments of hyperlinking come with Adichie’s descriptions of Nollywood films. In the TEDtalk, she uses Nollywood as an example of something that pushes against the single story of Nigeria. Adichie speaks of the potentials of her roommate holding a deeper understanding of where she comes from, saying: “What if my roommate knew about Nollywood, full of innovative people making films despite great technological odds, films so popular that they really are the best example of Nigerians consuming what they produce.” This uplifting of Nollywood film is striking, especially considering the ways in which the form appears throughout Americanah. This moment once again creates a distinct sense of the ways Adichie hyperlinks her themes and topics across moments, but this time this hyperlinking is more complicated. The presentation of Nollywood films throughout Americanah, does not fully align with the ways Nollywood is presented in the novel.
The first mention of Nollywood in the novel is gained through Ifemelu’s perspective. Adichie writes: “Ifemelu thought little of Nollywood films, with their exaggerated histrionics and their improbable plots, but she nodded in agreement because to hear “Nigeria” and “good” in the same sentence was a luxury…” (16). This expression contradicts what Adichie shares her TEDTalk, but this disconnect actually reinforces Adichie’s point regarding reaching nuanced perspectives that are not based on a single story. Operating across multiple forms, Adichie presents many different possibilities for perspective on Nollywood films. Her consistent readership would be met with both Ifemelu and Adichie’s beliefs about the genre, allowing them to come to their own unique perspective thanks to engagement that goes beyond just a singular telling of a thing.