Bestselling writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the distinguished writers expected at the 2022 New Yorker Festival, which holds between 7th and 9th of October.
The award-winning writer and feminist will be in conversation with Hari Kunzru on 8 October at the SVA Theatre in New York.
Parul Seghal will moderate the event. And their conversation will revolve around writing and race.
The New Yorker Festival, which was first held in 1999, is an annual event organized by the New Yorker magazine to celebrate the arts and ideas.
The three-day event features leading figures from writing, film, comedy, music and more. And it is held in venues in and around New York City every October, bringing together “a who’s who of the arts, politics and everything in between.”
The festival, which is in its 23rd year, has become a major draw for cultural Icons. It offers an array of panels, performances and conversations.
However, this is not the first time Chimamanda, in hot demand globally, will be a guest at the festival. In 2009, she was a guest at the festival, where she read from her 2009 collection of stories, The Thing Around Your Neck.
In 2011, Chimamanda was in conversation with Aleksander Hemon and Hisham Matar. She spoke on exile. Philip Gourevitch moderated the event.
In 2017, she was in conversation with David Remnick in which she talked about the Black experience in America and how the left often cannibalizes itself.
That event turned out to be epochal as it was held the year after Donald Trump became president of the United States. Chimamanda’s speech was a wake-up call, as she critiqued the left for failing to prioritize and work together for unity.
“I think the left doesn’t know how to be a tribe in the way that the right does,” she said. The left is very cannibalistic. It eats its own.”
In 2021, Chimamanda was also in conversation with Charlayna Hunter-Gault and Jamaica Kincaid. They spoke about race in America and beyond. Jelani Cobb moderated the event.