Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book Americanah explores the ‘strange construct’ of race in the United States. “You have to learn what it means to be black in America,” she says. In the interview she tells Terry Gross about why she aspired to have straight hair living in Nigeria:
“[T]he rite of passage from girl to woman is when you can go get a relaxer and have your hair straight. I remember looking forward very much to my last day of secondary school. … When I graduated secondary school, what I really wanted to do was go straight to the hair salon and get my relaxer, so my hair would be straight. Then I came to the U.S., and … I couldn’t afford to get a relaxer at a hair salon here because I thought it was just needlessly expensive. So I went to the drugstore and bought the relaxer kit and decided to do it myself, which didn’t end well. Having then a scalp with really bad burns, I suddenly thought, ‘Why am I even doing this?’ And that’s when I stopped using relaxers. And it took a while to accept my hair for the way that it grows from my head.”
image via Random House