Oga Toyin
Yes. If a positive post carries assumptions of sexism or racism, then we should recast it in support of the decolonization of our minds. I recently forwarded a Ted talk video to a brother with a PhD in Economics. His response was that it would be a joy to imagine the speaker as his mother or wife. I recast his positive comment by suggesting that it will be even better to imagine her as a president, governor, minister or legislator. The married father of two sons agreed with me. Adichie found a similar question from a child to be prejudiced but adults think it is positive to maternalize her without reading her work when our approach to male authors is completely different.
Biko
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 29/10/17, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Humanist On and Off the Page
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, 29 October, 2017, 10:01
Biko:
Is there a reason to recast a positive
post into a negative one?
TF
On 10/29/17, 8:48 AM, "'Biko Agozino'
via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
wrote:
Akwasi, if you had read
the story you would not have asked that question for Adichie
had answered it when a Ghanain student in New York asked her
how she could combine motherhood and her work. She answered
that the young man should promise her that when he met a
young father he would ask him how he combined fatherhood and
his work. You got a signed copy of her book but your comment
does not show that you have read any of her books.
Seriously?
Biko
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 29/10/17,
Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aassenso@indiana.edu>
wrote:
Subject: USA Africa
Dialogue Series - Re: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Humanist
On and Off the Page
To: "dialogue" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "anthony.a.akinola@gmail.com"
<anthony.a.akinola@gmail.com>,
"Doyin Coker-Kolo" <doyinck@gmail.com>,
"Dawn" <dmwhiteh@gmail.com>,
"Kanko, Cynthia" <ckanko@indiana.edu>,
"Philip Aka" <philip_aka@hotmail.com>,
"afaugustine@yahoo.com"
<afaugustine@yahoo.com>,
"Afoaku, Oyibo Helisita" <oafoaku@indiana.edu>,
"Afoaku, Osita" <osafoaku@indiana.edu>
Date: Sunday, 29
October, 2017, 8:46
SIR Toyin:
I am yet to go through
my copy of THE NEW YORK TIMES to
clip and save the story
about our beloved Sister Adichie,
who has now joined -- at
a comparatively youngish age
-- what Mwalimu (Nana)
Ali A. Mazrui would easily
have described as "an
exclusive club":
Public
Intellectuals Network! Professor Mazrui, of course,
was one of them!
Therefore, thank you very much for running
ahead with the very
enticing Dialogue posting below.
In fact, when our Oregon
campus brought writer Adichie to
a public event, soon
after Professor Achebe joined our
distinguished ancestors,
she looked very young, very
brilliant and ready to
be someone's bride (or as her
fellow feminists would
say, ready for
her to take a
groom)! Most certainly, she made all of us,
originally from the
beleaguered continent, proud that
night; her tribuite to
Professor Chinua Achebe was profound
and majestic. Also, we
were happy that she signed one of
her wonderful books for
our
family that night.
We have heard that our
famous Nigerian sister got
"hooked". So, who is the
lucky or blessed man: a
Nigerian (or an African)
Physician or a foreign Physician?
That is my important
question!
A.B. Assensoh.
From:
usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
on behalf of
Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October
28, 2017 11:28 AM
To: dialogue
Subject: USA Africa
Dialogue Series - Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie, a
Humanist On and Off the Page
From The New York
Times:
Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie, a
Humanist On and Off the
Page
She is the rare novelist
to become
a public intellectual
— as well as a defining voice on
race and gender for the
digital age.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/t-magazine/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie.html?mwrsm=Email
Cover Photo
Adichie, photographed in
the style
of Carrie Mae Weems's
1990 "The Kitchen Table Series."
Oscar de la Renta dress,
$2,190,
saks.com. Antique
earrings, $8,750, kentshire.com. Credit
Carrie Mae Weems. Styled
by Malina Joseph Gilchrist
Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie, a Humanist
On and Off the Page
She is the rare novelist
to become
a public intellectual
— as
well as a defining
voice on race and gender
for the digital age.
By DAVE EGGERSOCT. 16,
2017
Continue
reading the main story
Share This Page
ShareTweetEmailMoreSave
This story is one of the
seven
covers of
T Magazine's Greats
issue, on newsstands Oct.
22.
NOT LONG AGO, Chimamanda
Ngozi
Adichie stood in front
of a small class of literature
students at Cardozo high
school in Washington, D.C. Over the
last few years,
Adichie's books have appeared on thousands
of
required-reading lists — more or less every American
student between 14 and
22 has been assigned her
work.
While introducing her,
Dr. Frazier
O'Leary, the class's
soft-spoken teacher, mentioned that
Adichie had visited at
the school a few years before, and
that between that visit
and this one, Adichie had had a
daughter, now 23
months old. Then he ceded the floor to
Adichie. She stood
before the 20-odd students, her
fingertips on the
podium, and swept her almond eyes around
the room.
"So, what should we
talk
about?" she asked. In
front of an audience, Adichie speaks
with great precision,
measuring every word, her
Nigerian-British accent
sounding to American ears both
opulent and daunting.
No one raised their
hand.
Adichie was wearing a
T-shirt that
read, in glittering
letters, "We Should All Be
Feminists," and she
carried a Christian Dior bag that bore
the same message, both
inspired by her
2012 TEDx Talk, which
has been viewed over four million
times. The students had
been assigned to read Adichie's
essay based on the talk,
and thus it was dispiriting when
the first question came
from a young man, originally from
Ghana, who very
politely
asked how Adichie
was balancing her work with the
responsibilities of
motherhood.
Continue
reading the main story
Related Coverage
'Janelle
Asked to the Bedroom,'
a Micronovel by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie OCT.
20, 2017
To
the First Lady, With
Love OCT. 17, 2016
T's
Oct. 22 Greats Issue
About
Last Night: T
Magazine Celebrates the Greats OCT 20
Watch
Kids Sing Stephen
Sondheim at T's Greats Party OCT 20
'Janelle
Asked to the
Bedroom,' a Micronovel by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie OCT 20
Dries
Van Noten
Captures His World
— in Polaroid OCT 19
10
Famous People on
Stephen Sondheim OCT 18
See
More »
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue
reading the main story
She looked down and
smiled. She
took her time, and then,
with her chin still lowered, she
raised her eyes to look
kindly at the student.
"I'm going to answer
your
question," she said,
"but you have to promise me that
the next time you meet a
new father, you ask him how he's
balancing his work and
the responsibilities of
fatherhood."
The young man shrugged.
Adichie,
who is 40, smiled warmly
at him, but thereafter, the class,
already intimidated and
shy, grew only more so.
"Why don't I read a
bit?"
she said finally, and
she did.
Photo
Prada dress, $3,610,
(212) 334-8888.
Pilar Olaverri earrings,
$300, pilarolaverri.com.
Paul Andrew shoes, $645,
net-a-porter.com.
Credit Carrie Mae Weems.
Styled by Malina Joseph Gilchrist
AFTERWARD, ADICHIE and I
sat at a
restaurant in Columbia
Heights. "He was quite sanguine,
wasn't he?" she said
about the young man she'd
carefully corrected.
"Maybe he's young enough that he
hasn't been
indoctrinated
into the cult of
how and when to take offense. He can still
look at the merits of an
argument. Either that, or he was
looking pleasantly at me
and thinking, 'Bitch, go
away.' "
Adichie looks with a
gimlet eye at
American liberal
doctrine, preferring open and frank debate
to the narrow
constraints of approved messaging. Though she
is considered a global
icon of feminism, she has,
on occasion,
displeased progressive sects when she's
expressed her beliefs
about gender with candor and without
using the latest
terminology.
"It's a
cannibalistic
ethos," she says about
the American left. "It swiftly,
gleefully, brutally eats
its own. There is such a quick
assumption of ill will
and an increasing sanctimony and
humorlessness that
can often seem
inhumane. It's almost as if the humanity
of people gets lost and
what matters is that you abide to
every single rule in the
handbook of American liberal
orthodoxy."
The day was not warm,
but we
ordered lemonade.
Moments later, the waiter said they needed
our table for a large
party. We moved into a corner and the
waiter forgot about us
completely. Which seemed improbable,
with Adichie's
glittering bag on the table serving as a
kind of tabletop
lighthouse.
"I'll have you
know," she
said, "that this bag
was designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri,
the first woman creative
director at Dior. A very
interesting person. When
she proposed the T-shirt, she sent
me a handwritten
note."
I asked if Dior planned
to make
merchandise for every
one of her books. Maybe a necklace
that said "The Thing
Around Your Neck"? A sconce that
said "Half of a Yellow
Sun"? Adichie laughed her
distinctive laugh,
which overtakes
her whole torso but sounds like the giggle
of a teenager. I should
note here that I've known Adichie
for about 10 years now,
and she has always been startlingly
easy to make laugh, and
one of her very favorite subjects
for ridicule is the
exalted
reputation of
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
She grew up in an
upper-middle-class home,
the fifth of six children. Her
father was a professor
at the University of Nigeria, her
mother was the
university's registrar — the first woman
to hold that post.
Her parents
expected Chimamanda to be a doctor, and for a
year she studied
medicine at university, but her heart
wasn't in it.
"When I said I wanted
to write,
they were very
supportive, which was very unusual," she
said. "Nobody just
leaves medical school, especially given
it's fiercely
competitive to get in. But I had a sister
who
was a doctor,
another who was a pharmacist, a brother who
was an engineer. So my
parents already had sensible children
who would be able to
make an actual living, and I think they
felt comfortable
sacrificing their one strange
child."
Adichie was just 26 when
she
published her first
novel, "Purple
Hibiscus," in 2003. It
won the Commonwealth Writers'
Prize for Best First
Book.
Her second,
2006's "Half
of a Yellow Sun," was
a shimmering work of historical
fiction that reminded
the world of the Biafran War and made
it deeply
personal; it won
the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction
(now called the Baileys
Women's Prize for Fiction) and
garnered comparisons to
one of her heroes, Chinua Achebe.
The next year, she won a
MacArthur grant and found time to
finish a master's
degree in
African studies at
Yale. "The
Thing Around Your
Neck," her first collection of
stories, was published
in 2009, followed by 2013's "Americanah,"
an intimate and
accessible multigenerational story about
family and immigration
set in Nigeria and New Jersey. It won
the National Book
Critics Circle Award and has become an
enduring best seller.
While the majority of her previous
work had been tightly
controlled
and gravely
serious, "Americanah" was loose and
irreverent.
"I decided with that
book that I
was going to have fun,
and if nobody read it, that would be
fine," she said. "I
was free of the burden of research
necessary for the other
books. I was no longer the dutiful
daughter of
literature."
In "Americanah,"
the
protagonist, a Nigerian
woman named Ifemelu, moves to New
Jersey and is first
confused and then amused by the cultural
differences between
African-Americans and Africans living in
America.
Ifemelu decides to
explore the subject in a blog called
Raceteenth or Various
Observations About American Blacks
(Those Formerly Known as
Negroes) by a Non-American Black.
Through the blog,
Adichie was able to speak with disarming
forthrightness about
life
as an African
living in America: "I was tired of everyone
saying that when you
write about race in America, it has to
be nuanced, it has to be
subtle, it has to be this and
that."
The directness of the
blog, I
suggested, seemed to
provide a bridge to her TEDx Talk,
which became a book,
which became a T-shirt and a
bag.
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"Yes and no," she
said. "But
I'll allow your
thesis." She laughed her
laugh.
Now there is a follow-up
called
"Dear
Ijeawele,
or a Feminist
Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions."
Asked by a friend, a new
mother, for advice in making her
daughter Chizalum a
feminist, Adichie wrote another (very
direct, lucid) work.
Suggestion No. 1 reads, "Be a full
person. Motherhood is a
glorious
gift, but do not
define yourself solely by motherhood."
No. 8: "Teach her to
reject likability. Her job is not to
make herself likable,
her job is to be her full self, a self
that is honest and aware
of the equal humanity of other
people." And No. 15:
"Teach
her about
difference. Make difference ordinary. Make
difference normal. Teach
her not to attach value to
difference."
The reaction to these
manifestoes
among a reading public
longing for probity and directness
has been profound. In a
San Francisco auditorium last year,
I witnessed Adichie step
onto the stage in front of almost
3,000 people —
the average age of the audience was about
20. She wore
ankara-patterned pants and a white blouse and
stood on four-inch
heels, and the audience response was
euphoric.
"It's not that I
told people
something they don't
know, it's just that I did it in
language that was more
accessible." She looked around the
restaurant. "But I
don't think we're ever going to get
our lemonade."
ADICHIE AND HER HUSBAND,
a
physician, spend half of
each year in Maryland, and the
other half in Lagos,
where they have a home and where her
extended family lives.
In Nigeria, Adichie is
considered
a national icon, not
only because her books have garnered
such acclaim, but
because quickly after her success she
founded the Farafina
Trust Creative Writing Workshop, a
program
where aspiring
Nigerian writers spend a few weeks every
year workshopping with
Adichie and a coterie of
international writers
she brings to Lagos. She invited me to
teach there in 2009, and
I got the chance to meet her family
and friends, all of whom
were
supportive, kind,
funny, devoted — it was all sickeningly
perfect.
One night, it became the
obsession
of one of the guest
lecturers, the Kenyan writer Binyavanga
Wainaina, to bring
Adichie to one of Lagos's seamier
nightspots. He asked her
where that would be. She had no
idea. "I'm a
nice middle-class girl," she said,
laughing. "I don't
know about such places." She was
serious, though. She did
not know.
So we called Adichie's
childhood
friend Chuma. He
suggested Obalende, a district of Lagos
known for its nightclubs
and strip clubs. Chuma picked us up
and drove us to a
neighborhood where fish and plantains
were fried on the
street, where the air was swampy with
weed. He chose a club
with a slanted roof of corrugated
steel and Fela bursting
from the sound system. We sat
outside on a humid
night, Adichie game but wide-eyed. We
were visited by a street
musician
who would not
leave. Adichie requested Fela's "Unknown
Soldier" and he played
it, and we stayed late, and most of
us got tipsy — even
Adichie; she had one drink — and at
the end of the night, I
was the only one fit to drive, which
I did, which everyone
thought
very funny,
especially when we were pulled over by a
traffic cop, who wanted
a bribe. I did what I always do in
that situation, which
was to act like the world's dumbest
tourist, and it worked.
He let us go, and Adichie, in the
back seat, laughed all
the way
home.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
is
featured on one of the
covers of T's Oct. 22 Greats
issue.
See
the other six covers
A FEW MONTHS after her
appearance
at Cardozo high school,
Adichie was on a rooftop in downtown
D.C. It was breezy and
the sky threatened rain. She had
agreed to attend a book
release party celebrating a
collection
of essays called
"Having to Tell Your Mother Is the
Hardest Part," written
by D.C. public school students,
with guidance from
tutors from 826DC, a nonprofit youth
writing organization
with which I'm affiliated.
A tent had been set up,
and
cocktails were served,
and a young African-American man
stepped to the podium.
He was delicately built for 15,
wearing a
mustard-colored button-down, a tie and
thick-framed glasses.
"When I was 2 years
old, my mom
and dad passed away,"
the boy, whose name was Edwyn, read.
"I was in and out of
foster homes and was never in really
good care. The way I
used to grieve was by not eating or
by fighting, and I
always got in trouble. I would get angry
whenever someone said,
'Yo mama.' I felt like I wanted
to hurt someone. I have
gotten past that, and now, I want to
take my meds so I can
grow emotionally and become a better
me. I decided to try
group vigils where
I can talk about my loss, but it has
never helped. I refused
to share until, one time, I broke
down and shared
everything."
The audience on the
rooftop stood
spellbound. I looked
over to Adichie. Her eyes were wet.
Edwyn continued. In a
group home, he said, he almost stabbed
another boy. He almost
flunked out of school. Finally,
he was adopted by
a loving family who moved him to
Washington. "I was
starting to mature," he read. "I
started to change. Now
I'm in the 10th grade, writing
about how I used to
grieve, but I am happy with the family I
am with."
His essay ended like
that, and he
sat down with the
unaffected attitude of a student who had
just read a paper about
meiosis or the Louisiana Purchase.
Afterward, we approached
Edwyn, who was now surrounded
by admirers. He
shook Adichie's hand like a cocktail
party veteran, telling
her he'd heard a lot about her and
was happy she was
there.
"I thought you were
very
brave," Adichie said
evenly.
Word of Adichie's
presence on
the roof began making
its way through the attendees. Another
student, a gregarious
young woman named Monae, approached.
"I didn't know you
were here!" she said. "You were
the
one in
Beyoncé's song!" (A few years ago, Beyoncé
sampled parts of
Adichie's "We Should All Be
Feminists" talk in her
2013 song
"Flawless.")
"You have to read what
I
wrote!" Monae said,
and gave Adichie a copy of "Having
to Tell Your Mother Is
the Hardest Part," opened to a
spread bearing her
smiling face and her essay, titled
"Queen."
We made our way to a
quiet part of
the rooftop and watched
the adults swarm the
student-writers, getting
their books signed.
"That is lovely,"
Adichie
said. "Just
lovely."
After the party, we said
goodbye
on the corner of
Pennsylvania and 17th. Adichie's parents
were in town, visiting
from Nigeria, and she had to get back
to Maryland.
"That boy," she
said, and
sighed. She was still
thinking about Edwyn. "There was
something so clean and
pure and true about his writing,
don't you think?
Increasingly I find that that's the
kind of thing I
want to read."
Click
here to download the
cover.
Set design by Carin
Scheve at Brydges Mackinney. Hair by
Jinn for R+Co. Makeup by
Joanna Simkin at The Wall Group.
Washington, D.C.
production by Anne Calamuci/Photogroup.
Photographer's
assistant: James Wang. Stylist's
assistant: Angela Koh
A version of this
article appears
in print on October 22,
2017, on Page M2156 of T Magazine
with the headline:
Chimanada Ngozi Adichie.
Today's
Paper|Subscribe
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