We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I went to hear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Convention Centre, Dublin as part of the International Literature Festival 2018 #ILFDublin2018 and bought the book at the stall there. As I’d went a bit early, while we were still waiting for Adichie to come on stage, I opened the book and started reading it. It’s a thin booklet outlining author’s views on her definition of feminism. It has stories from her own life and defines what feminism should mean in today’s world. Later when Adichie came on stage and was being interviewed, she took material from this booklet and reiterated some of the documented views, I’d just read. I didn’t knew much about Adichie till I happened to come across and read her earlier book ‘Half of Yellow Sun’, a few years back. I found that book really helpful as it was from somebody contemporary from the continent of Africa telling the stories from a place about which everybody has so many misconceptions.

I was enthralled to know that she would be at Dublin and was eagerly waiting to see and hear her in person. She is one of the most original & prominent voices coming out of Africa and provides a unique insiders viewpoint on the lives of her own people, West Africa in particular. There have been so few original writers from Africa and Adichie’s narratives are precious in that it covers the contemporary life in the booming African continent which is set to be the next growth story of the world. Though the event was at Dublin, there were still a sizeable number of black women in audience and in the question answer session later on, it was really heartening to see the respect Adichie generates in her own people.

She is a perfect role model for new Africa & whole world and also is the reminder of the changing norms in our world. Africa is one place with forgettable history where plight of women is so well documented and to see someone from there to come to stage preaching feminism to a large white audience shows how far our world has come since last few decades. I felt that this event was timely in that Ireland is going through a review of its antiquated abortion laws and when asked about it, Adichie was really horrified to know that in this age, in a predominantly white country in the western world, there is so little value put on the lives of women. How the table has turned? A few decades earlier, blacks were viewed almost as sub humans and now one proud black women is boldly preaching the west on its inhumane practices. Later on, there was a big queue to get the books signed by the author and I was there to get my copy personally signed and it would remain a treasured possession in my library.

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