Adichie on To Kill A Mockingbird

"She reminded me of the imagined version of myself I liked best. Her knowing older brother Jem was very much like my brother Okey, whose happy shadow I was, and her small southern American town, Macomb, was similar to my town, Nsukka in eastern Nigeria. It was a place of open doors, of the one strange family about whom everyone gossiped, and of petty hierarchies and loyalties; a place both smug and safe. But Macomb was also much less sophisticated than my town, in a way that was fascinating, with little boys who did not bathe for weeks and deals sealed by spitting into palms."

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