[applause] >> good evening and welcome to the second annual eudora welty lecture. t is a great pleasure to speak you tonight in ighonor of miss welty memoir. a book that served as a died as ever my oh my more, ever is a long time. it is also would like to introduce chimamanda ngozi adichie. a writer who, like miss welty used -- the geography and history and inevitably, the politics are a powerful presence in her fiction. for miss chimamanda ngozi adichie, the place is nigeria. one that seems distant from mississippi geographically and historically but is linked in unexpected ways. when speaking of eudora welty, my students always asked me, why i usually refer to her as ms. welty my response up until now would to say otherwise it would violate southern manners. since will never really acquainted. but tonight, i feel compelled to refer to her as eudora. as a longtime student and teacher of her work.i have gained a closeness with her through exploration with thmy students of the lyricism, the irony, the incisive description and narrative structure of both her fiction a

when speaking of eudora welty, my students always ask me why i usually refer to her as ms. welty. up until now my response was that to refer to her otherwise would violate southern manners, since we were never really acquainted. [laughter] but tonight i feel compelled to refer to her as eudora. as a longtime student and now teacher of her work, i've gained a closeness with her through my exploration with my students of the lyricism, the irony, the incisive description and narrative structure of both her fiction and her photographs. for a year i even lived in the shadow of her house on pinehurst street in jackson, mississippi, while i taught at millsaps college, a place where she also taught writing. during that time i came to think of eudora more as a neighbor than as a distant literary figure. so it's difficult for me to continue to be so formal. now, in eudora's essay she ponders whether works of literature should take crusading positions. the normallist works neither to correct, nor -- novelist works neither to correct, nor to condone, not at all to comfort but to make what's to

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