Award-winning Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie continues her extensive press tour in support of her recent release Dream Count with an appearance on What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast.

The episode, titled “The Reality of Fiction,” aired on March 20, 2025 and already has over 300k views on YouTube. Adichie talks to Noah and co-host Christiana Mbakwe Medina about the process turning ideas into writing and engaging in public debate in today’s increasingly contentious world.

The smart and funny conversation spans from a discussion of Dream Count, which Adichie describes as her “most grown up novel,” to the American politics and academia to the role of fiction in today’s society. The three participants trade stories about their shared experiences with Nigerianness, like Noah sharing how it was Nigerians in South Africa who showed him how to believe in himself and Adichie talking about tempering her “Nigerian directness” when talking to non-Nigerian fans.

The conversation turns towards a discussion of openness in public conversations and navigating disagreements, a topic Adichie has brought up often during this press tour (see, for instance, her statements on cancel culture in The Guardian profile), likely in response to the widespread backlash against her comments about trans women in 2017. Since then, Adichie has been vocal about what she sees as the challenges of open discussion in the American public sphere. In this podcast, she emphasizes that she welcomes disagreement — “I don’t care about agreeing with people, but I love a well-structured argument. I love an idea that makes me think.” — and that she finds it “boring” when everyone agrees with each other. She argues that the “moralizing of opinion” in the U.S. makes engaging in productive disagreement difficult because it turns a person you think is wrong into a person you think is morally bad.

The episode is filled with additional insight into the story behind Adichie’s new novel and how different people take on different points of view when reading. Adichie shares the perspective of being an author with complete control over what to create and leaving in some ambiguity and opacity such that readers are left with something extra for themselves.

“What Now? with Trevor Noah” is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. Each episode features a substantial, engaging conversation between Noah and special guests such as entertainers, CEOs, actors, athletes, and thought leaders.

Watch the video below or listen to the episode wherever you listen to podcasts!