Since my debut at Wordfest last year, I’d been looking forward to the spring programme. When it finally came out, I was overjoyed. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would be coming to Cambridge! So, while there weren’t as many must-see events as before, I booked my tickets early – wisely, as it turned out, as all three sessions were sold out.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I loved both The Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s first novel, and her second, Half a Yellow Sun, so I was very excited to hear her talk about her third novel, Americanah. It seemed as though everyone else rammed into the Palmerston room at St John’s College felt the same way. I knew she was ferociously bright, but didn’t expect her to be quite so charming or funny in a self-deprecating way. She has obviously talked a lot about the politics of hair; she has quite a riff going on how black women are perceived whether they wear their hair in dreadlocks, braids, loose (for which read ‘untamed’) or ‘relaxed’ ie straightened. She also has quite strong views on the different experience of race in Great Britain and the United States: ‘ You committed your sins overseas; in the US those sins were committed on home soil.’ But, you can get away with making your audience uncomfortable if you temper your comments with a smile. If you want to see for yourself just how engaging Chimamanda is, see her interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 news: http://www.bellanaija.com/2013/04/19/watch-americanah-author-chimamanda-ngozi-adichies-engaging-interview-on-channel-4-news/
Seumas Milne
It’s always a treat to hear intelligent passionate discourse, even if one doesn’t necessarily agree with everything being said. Seumas Milne spoke eloquently and at great length – answering only a few questions and batting away any dissent – about the war on terror and free market capitalism, the rise of China and Latin America, the 2011 riots and the Occupy movement, the growth of neo-liberalism and the revolutions in the Arab world. It was quite a romp through the decade post 9/11. Perhaps I should buy The Revenge of History to fully understand.
Stephen Grosz
Stephen Grosz has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve heard in a long time. In both manner and dress, he reminded me of an old-fashioned priest in the confessional. His slight book, The Examined Life, is a distillation of his 25 years as a psychoanalyst presented as 31 case studies. Stephen read excerpts from some of these stories, talked about what he had learned from his patients and took questions from the floor. He was fascinating on how resistant people are to change their behaviour, recounting how shoppers in a department store continued to queue to buy their purchases even as they watched first smoke and then flames creep across the sales floor.
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