The Danger of a Single Story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave this TED Talk on the ‘Danger of a Single Story’ in 2009, which is still relevant eleven years later. In less than 20 minutes, she talks about how human lives and cultures are composed of overlapping stories and the dangers of reducing these complicated lives and situations into a single narrative.

She says, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck, Americanah, and We Should All Be Feminists.