Katy Guest interviews acclaimed novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
As a young Nigerian writer, Adichie is expected to venerate Achebe (and she does); but her current idol is a woman [Michelle Obama] from her adopted home. She moved to America as an undergraduate and lives in Maryland with her partner, a doctor ('Because of a man!' she says, with a show of embarrassment) but splits her time between the US and Nigeria now. It is important to be able to go home, but also to get away. 'When I wrote Purple Hibiscus I romanticised home because I had been in America for four years... and I was just desperately homesick. The book is a very nostalgic, romantic, emotional.' She sniffs theatrically. 'I was remembering the hibiscus flower in our yard'. -- from "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: How the Acclaimed Novelist is Becoming a Role-Model and Mentor," by Katy Guest, The Independent