Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather

than recognizing how we are"says,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

A writer, activist, and an unapologetic feminist. With her feminist

approach striking in words, she is equipped to break down gender-based
discrimination. The cultural background she encountered as a woman
being brought up in Nigeria and later moved to America for studies
where she spent the majority of her life has provoked her to draw
inspiration and pen it down subsequently uplifting women all over the
world.

Adichie’s diverse essays enter into an interaction with the young minds
on combating social exertion and prompt them to grow and learn out of
it. Her Ted Talk and later turned long-book essay 'We Should All Be
Feminists' created volumes of change and acknowledgement in
society thereby exhibiting a conclusive connotation of feminism for
women in the 21st century in the wake of sheer need to have self
preserved girls from the vultures of society.

She has written several books on issues ranging from feminism to

racism to gender conceptions. She attended Eastern Connecticut State
University and completed an academic degree in creative writing and
African Studies from John Hopkins University and Yale University
respectively.

Through her second and internationally award-winning book ‘ Half of A

Yellow Sun’, she depicted the tragedy a war carries after 4 years of
research and writing, initially built out from how her family lost both
maternal and paternal parental figures during the Civil War of Nigeria.
‘Half of a Yellow Sun ‘is a powerful story about morality, the end of
colonialism, cultural loyalties, ethnicity and social class- how love may
muddle those things.

As a woman identified by the colour of her skin only concerned her when
she arrived in the United States for college where she met with what it
meant to be an individual of colour in the States. An idea of the race
suddenly became something more than a random term that she had to
traverse and learn. Her intriguing words through her third novel
‘Americanah’ goes on like “Dear Non-American Black, when you
make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing.
Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian, America doesn't care”.
Something which broke out during 2013 and created revolt in immigrated
Americans.

Adichie’s have made quite few powerful statements on today’s feminism

including “The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed in a
vagina” in her book ‘Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in
Fifteen Suggestions’ which goes right to the point, offering advice
like teaching a young girl to read widely and recognize the impact of
language in reinforcing unhealthy cultural norms; encouraging her to
choose what she want and having open conversations about
appearance, identity, and sexuality which set off a new, much-needed
discourse about what it means to be a woman in today's world.

In recent years, after giving birth to a daughter and indulging in

motherhood for quite a while, Adichie also brought out ‘Zikora’, a
poignant short story depicting the range of emotions a mother-daughter
relationship undergoes while battling inner storms when a child is born.

In 2021, Adichie wrote ‘Notes on Grief’ on account of her father’s death

to kidney failure. The book brings death and grief to life in an instinctual
way. It's both a heartbreaking account of a daughter's grief and how an
individual dwells and learns from grief.
Quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie usually evoke feelings of
compassion and acceptance. Adiche contends that it is our responsibility
as a community and society to teach girls to aspire to the same level of
freedom as men. We should also educate boys about the gender roles
and pointless expectations we place on our females as an element of
patriarchy. In this sense, they will value human dignity more than we did
in the past.

She is a winner of MacArthur Fellowship ,International Nonino Prize and

Common Wealth Writers Prize among many others for her literary and
social work. In April 2014, she was chosen one of 39 writers under the
age of 40 in the Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club project Africa,
which commemorated Port Harcourt's UNESCO World Book Capital title.

She was also elected to the 237th class of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, one among the very best honours bestowed on
intellectuals within the US, in April 2017.

Over the years Adichie has made quite a lot of thought-provoking and
controversial statements on feminism and trans-genders which had
mixed reactions from the audience. But all of her virtues in essays, and
therefore the content in her book screams how she has embraced
herself as an individual and woman of colour over years of tackling the
gender-based differences in society to the long battle to build a
community with embedded compassion and feminism to have a better
world.

References

● https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimamanda_Ngozi_Adichie
● https://www.chimamanda.com/about-chimamanda/
● https://study.com/academy/lesson/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-
biography.html
● https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19992417.Chimamanda_
Ngozi_Adichie
● https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie