hat when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.

for all the people who are eager to tell our many stories.

It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

close-knit

that writers were expected to have had really unhappy childhoods to be successful, I began to think about how I could invent horrible things my parents had done to me.

This is not because I am a better person than that student, but because of America's cultural and economic power,

the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with

how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.

nkali

show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again

I remember first feeling slight surprise. And then, I was overwhelmed with shame

tortillas

I too am

I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity.

of difference, of darkness, of people who,

merchant

would see Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide's family.

too would

being

embrace

whenever Africa came up, people turned to me. Never mind that I knew nothing about places like Namibia.

no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.

My roommate had a single story of Africa

patronizing

What struck me was this

Their poverty was my single story of them

startled

dyed raffia

I felt enormous pity for Fide's family

yams

It saved me from having a single story of what books are.

stirred

could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized.

kinky hair

perception

is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story,

I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story."

desperate

afterwards

crayon illustrations

how lovely