Award winning Nigerian novelist and author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has urged youths across the globe to dedicate more time to reading if they must do well in life.
According to reports, Adichie made this known while delivering her speech at The Harvard Centre Honors, Massachusetts, US, where she received W.E.B Du Bois Medal honour on Thursday.
The 45-year-old novelist claimed she left Nigeria rather than pursue a medical degree as her parents had desired, claiming
“I was made to make stories.”
She then urged young people to adopt a reading culture after providing some insight into how her family in the US, who made it necessary for her to pursue a wonderful writing career, received her.
The most fulfilling aspect of being a writer, according to her, is knowing that I can produce content that has value for other people. The feedback I receive from readers who say,
“Your work helped me feel noticed, your work made me think differently, and your work made me feel like I was not alone” impacts me the most.
And I’m so appreciative of this award because, once more, it confirms my belief that what I do matters. This is a wonderful gift to have this belief.
“For the young people in this room, if you care about anything, please care about reading. Reading is crucial, and books and reading are both 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.”
Speaking about embracing books at the expense of social media, 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.”
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