Let Anger Fuel Your Writing

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, on an autobiographical story that was "motivated by rage" (it's about a writing workshop gone colonially awry) in her forthcoming collection, The Thing Around Your Neck:

"For me the story is about the larger question of who determines what an African story is. You have this workshop of African writers, it's completely organised by the British, then this person who has his own ideas ... imposes them on these young, very impressionable people. I remember feeling helpless. You're sitting there thinking, this is the result of 200 years of history: we can sit here and be told what our story is."

This is the result of 200 years of history: we can sit here and be told what our story is. 

Rage is good fuel:  The Thing Around Your Neck is Adichie's third book, and she's 31.   

For the whole profile/interview in The Observer, go here.  (But oh, William Skideldky, did you need to reassure us that "there is nothing shrill about her tone"?)