"I only became black when I came to America,"- Chimamanda Adichie

She's an award-winning novelist, a TED talk sensation and Beyoncé's favourite feminist. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is in the April 2015 issue of Vogue. In the April edition of the paper, Chimamanda talked about various things, including being a writer and a feminist, her views on race , her work being sampled by Beyonce, and about fashion,  her husband, Dr Ivara Esege, a professor of medicine in Baltimore where they have a home in addition to their house in Lagos where she spends more than half of the year.

Read some interesting excerpts from the interview below and check out the full essay by Erica Wagner on Vogue.

On getting upset when a Nigerian journalist refused her request to be referenced as 'Ms' and instead called her Mrs. Adichie in a national newspaper headline;

"It was the lack of gratitude on my part for having a husband. And yet I didn't want to proclaim it: I wanted to claim my own name."

On being teased by her family for not liking Garri;

 She mimics them: "'Oh, you say you are such a proud Nigerian! But how can you be if you don't like this?'" She throws back her head and laughs. (It clearly is quite a big deal, this: she wrote a piece about it for The  New Yorker a few years ago) 

On the almost always dramatic looks Lagos makeup artists give their clients;

"Why pay for it if you can't see it? That's the thinking!"

On having difficulty finding the right shade of foundation for herself in Europe. 

"Oh, yes, I always carry my own base with me.

"

On race in Nigeria compared with race relations in America;

"In Nigeria I'm not black. We don't do race in Nigeria. We do ethnicity a lot, but not race. My friends here don't really get it. Some of them sound like white Southerners from 1940. They say, 'Why are black people complaining about race? Racism doesn't exist!' It's just not a part of their existence."

On ''Selma'' being snubbed in the Oscars

 "I took that very personally. It's almost a slap in the face for a person who wants to believe in some kind of progress; 2014 was such a difficult year for America and race."

On why her experience "is always shaped by race" in America;

"Somebody sends a limo to pick me up, and I just notice an attitude that the white, older male driver has. He's thinking, that's who I'm picking up? And I can't help thinking, if I were white, would he have a problem? If I were black and male, would he have a problem?"

On her writing workshops in Lagos and words for young Nigerian writers;

"I want to make it valid, to dream about books and writing. Because in Nigeria it's very hard; people will say to you, what do you mean, 'writing'? Nigerians are a very, very practical people. And while I admire practicality, I feel we need to make a space for dreaminess. But life is short. I'll say, don't give up your job. Get up earlier, make the space. If it matters to you, make it matter. I wrote Purple Hibiscus when I was an undergraduate. I was my sister's unpaid housekeeper, I was cooking, taking care of my nephew - I got up at 2am to write."

On agreeing to do the TEDxEuston talk on feminism which was organized by her brother;

"I thought, I don't have anything to talk about. I'm not the kind of person who can manufacture things when I don't care deeply about them. But my brother said, well, there is this one thing you give us endless lectures about…Because it's known in my family, you don't want to demean women in my presence! And I knew this wasn't a comfortable subject, particularly for the people I was addressing, an African audience.

"I was still writing it when I went up to speak, and afterwards, clearly people had listened, clearly people felt strongly about it - but I let it go. So they put it online, and only then I heard about people using it in their classes, about people arguing about it at work and school."

On not speaking much on the collaboration with Beyonce;

"I am a person who writes and tells stories. That's what I want to talk about. There's an obsession with celebrity that I have never had. But the one thing I will say is that I really do think Beyoncé is a force for good, as much as celebrity things go.

I know there has been lot of talk in the past year about how feminism is 'cool' now, but I think if we are honest, it's not a subject that's easy. She didn't have to do this, she could have taken on, I don't know, world peace. Or nothing at all. And I realise that so many young people in our celebrity-obsessed world, well, suddenly they are thinking about this. And that's a wonderful thing. So I don't have any reservations about having said yes."

On her heroines; 

"the nameless women in the market, who are holding their families together. They are traders and their husbands are out drinking somewhere... It's those women I admire. I am full of admiration for them."

On the oppression of women; 

"I can't not be angry. I don't know how you can just be calm. My family says to me, 'Oh, you're such a man!' - you know, very lovingly… But of course I'm not, I just don't see why I shouldn't speak my mind."

On her designing her own clothes


 "I do all these drawings for my clothes," she says. "Really terrible drawings. But I love to do them, and he(her husband)  gave me the crayons so I could add a little bit of colour."

Food for thought from her interview:
''Nigerians need to make a space for dreaminess. But life is short''

''My family says, 'Oh, you're such a man!' But I don't see why I shouldn't speak my mind''