Writers Seminar 19/20
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Biography
- Chimamanda was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1977. She is the fifth of six children.
- She was raised in Nsukka, Nigeria.
- Pharmacy and Medicine, University of Nigeria.
- Political Science and Communications, Drexel University.
- Eastern Connecticut State University (transfer).
- Creative Writing, Johns Hopkins University. (Masters Degree)
- African Studies, Yale University. (Masters Degree)
- Fellowships – Princeton University, MacArthur Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Published works
- Purple Hibiscus
- Half of a Yellow Sun
- Dear Ijeawele / A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
- Americanah
- The Thing Around Your Neck
- We Should All Be Feminists
- You in America
Prevalent Themes
- Feminism
- Love
- Racism
- Debunking stereotypes
- Family
- Religion
- Politics
Quotes
1). “This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.”
2). “Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.”
3). “She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.”
We should all be feminists…
- Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not solely define yourself by motherhood.
- Do it together. Let your husband do everything with you.
- Teach her that ‘gender roles’ is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl.
- Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite. It is the idea of conditional female equality. You either believe in the full equality of men and women or you do not.
- Teach Chizalum to read. Teach her to love books.
- Teach her to question language.
- Never speak of marriage as an achievement. Teach her that marriage is not an achievement, nor is it what she should aspire to.
- Teach her to reject likeability. Her job is not to make herself likeable but her job is to be herself.
- Give Chizalum a sense of identity. Let her grow up to think of herself as a proud igbo woman.
- Be deliberate about how you engage with her and her appearance.
- Teach her to question our culture’s selective use of biology as ‘reasons’ for social norms.
- Talk to her about sex and start early.
- Romance will happen so be on board.
- In teaching her about oppression, be careful not to turn the oppressed into saints.
- Teach her about difference. Teach her not to attach value to difference.
My Emulation…
This was love
The need to be in your arms
The need to give you that power over me
The melting of my heart
The uproar of the butterflies in my stomach
The lack of a choice in following you
That was love
This is love
The conversation where respect is fostered
The regard for one another
The equality upon which we stand
The companionship which we have built
The trust that never falters
This is love
