“It is such an interesting thing to become a mother.”Chimamanda said. “I still look at her in absolute wonder.” .

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie-the famed Nigerian author-met her London fans last week at a sold out event at the Royal Festival Hall in South East London.

The video above is a sneak insight to the huge popularity of the acclaimed author who was in London to mark the 10th anniversary of Half of a Yellow Sun-her acclaimed novel; and since produced into a movie.

I must confess to not being fully aware of her popularity…in London… until I arrived to an already seated audience of thousands-and counting…45 minutes before 7:30p.m when she was expected to start her live talk . Up to 2500 fans turned up…the total sitting capacity of the Royal Festival Hall auditorium.

When she materialised on stage….it was to huge cheering and applause from the audience spread out in the auditorium’s tire seating arrangement.

I had built up expectations of what she looked…and sounded like (obviously from having seen her images online and some British television channels). However there is something unique about seeing somebody with one’s own eyes and hearing them with one’s ears; an experience that cannot be matched by virtual perceptions.

The surprise.

• She revealed being a new mum….to much ululation from her fans. Her baby girl is now 9 months old (she did not reveal this detail but my journalistic curiosity… enabled me dig up it up).

My impressions of her.

• She is a beautiful woman who speaks with a nice deep and authoritative feminine voice. She dresses formally…yet impressively… with her clothing, hair and shoes in proper style.
• She is witty, has a wide English vocabulary that matches this feature in her books.
• She is very proud of her African ancestry, is endeared to her people and Africans in general and would be quite the match for those who belittle the African ancestry.
• She is quite knowledgeable about her country’s history and is evidence that Africans are far better speaking about themselves, their culture and specific countries that do supposed ‘experts’ in the western world.

Chimamanda spoke politics, the Biafra war, motherhood, feminism, identity, her people (the Igbo), reactions from her people to her acclaimed novel-Half of a Yellow Sun.