Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is getting her teeth into a new subject. They are perfectly uniform and slightly gapped – like machinegun rounds. “Tell us about your family. How did you end up the freelance correspondent in Lagos, or for west Africa? You didn’t know anyone? Someone wasn’t your dad’s friend?”
I almost escaped this. I am heading for the door after a perfectly serviceable interview. But she is blocking my way, a small, shimmering figure in a silk two-piece. “I like your hair,” she says, glancing at the iridescent fury. “And you know the character in Half of a Yellow Sun is Richard.”
Of course I do. Of course I, the Times correspondent in Lagos, know that one of the two protagonists in this 2006
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