Novelist and author of Half of a yellow sun, Chimamanda Adichie has expressed displeasure for cancel culture.

Speaking on Newsnight, Chimamanda said that cancelling people for the smallest things makes “censorship a thing we do to ourselves.”

She also expressed worries that cancel culture might be hampering learning because people are terrified to express themselves.

She said: “I generally just feel very weary of it. In general, I think that the response to bad speech is more speech and that can feel a bit clichéd but really I believe that, which is to say, if somebody says something one doesn’t like, I think that the response is to say more about why we don’t like it. 

“The problem with cancelling people, sometimes for the smallest things, I think it then makes censorship become a thing that we do to ourselves.

“I often wonder how many people are not saying what they think because they’re terrified. And if that’s happening, how much are we not learning? How much are we not growing?

“And most of all, this assumption that one is supposed to know it all. Because sometimes, in certain circles in the US in particular, even asking a question can get you cancelled. And there’s something about it also that I just find incredibly lacking in basic compassion.”