Author Chimamanda Adichie on why we need black stories

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

It's one the most compelling talks I have seen in years. It’s the talk of Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie (32) who talks about the danger of a single story. One of the single stories is the story of the one sided view of Africa. Africa as a place of war, poverty and aids. But she doesn’t only talks about the ‘West’ versus Africa, she also talks about her own single view of a boy who worked at her home. Her parents told he was poor, and she always saw him as poor boy. But it turned out she was also trapped in that single story of the poor boy.

She also explains why we need black authors.

Although she seems somewhat nervous, she tells her story like an exciting book. She held her TED talk on july 2009 in Oxford