The danger of “a single story”
Chimamanda Adichie
I'm a storyteller. […] When I began to write at about the age of 7 […], I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading. All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, they talked about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. Now this, despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria, I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn't have snow, we ate mangos, and we never talked about the weather because there was no need to. […] Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign I had become convinced that books, by their very nature, had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify. Well, things changed when I discovered African books. […] I realized that people like me, girls with skin the colour of chocolate whose kinky hair could not form pony tails could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized. […] African books saved me from a single story.
Disponível em: . Acesso em: 21 set. 2010. [Excerto]
I'm a storyteller. […] When I began to write at about the age of 7 […], I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading. All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, they talked about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. Now this, despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria, I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn't have snow, we ate mangos, and we never talked about the weather because there was no need to. […] Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign I had become convinced that books, by their very nature, had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify. Well, things changed when I discovered African books. […] I realized that people like me, girls with skin the colour of chocolate whose kinky hair could not form pony tails could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized. […] African books saved me from a single story.
Disponível em: . Acesso em: 21 set. 2010. [Excerto]
According to Chimamanda Adichie, “The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story”. Which of these statements is a stereotype about Nigeria?
