By Taiwo Ajala
Celebrated Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie is stirring the hornet nest again when she counseled young people to balance out their lives and read books.
Adichie’s suggestion is coming at the heels of series of bans and counterbans of book reading culture in the United States of America and around the world.
She made this suggestion when she received the W.E.B Du Bois Medal from Harvard University on Thursday.
Adichie said: “The most meaningful thing for me as a writer is to know that I can create something that means something to other people. And so what moves me the most is to hear from people who have read me and who say, your work made me feel seen, your work made me think differently, your work made me feel that I was not alone.
“For the young people who are here, if you care about anything, please care about reading, reading is so important, reading is magical, books are magical. And I really think that one of the best ways to counter what seems to me to be a really ugly tsunami of book bannings going around in this country is to read. The only way that we can answer to censorship of books is to read books.”
On giving up social media for books, Adichie said, “And so for you young people, I just want to make a very small suggestion, how about you give up social media for you know, two weeks, three weeks, a month, and read, read, read.”
