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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Novelist and essayist

Nigeria · b. 1977

Nigerian novelist and essayist, author of Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah and the essays We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele. She began a medical degree in Nigeria before leaving to study in the United States.

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How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?

But after one year of medical school I fled. I realized I would be a very unhappy doctor and I really did not want to be responsible for the inadvertent death of my patients. Leaving medical school was a very unusual decision, especially in Nigeria where it is very difficult to get into medical school. Later, people told me that it had been very courageous of me, but I did not feel courageous at all. What I felt then was not courage but a desire to make an effort. To try.

Recorded Wellesley College 137th Commencement, 29 May 2015 source

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