AWARD-WINNING NIGERIAN AUTHOR, CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE HONOURED IN SWEDEN

CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE 

Continuing to put Nigeria on the map, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun will now have the bound-and-published essay of her famous Tedx talk on feminism in London given to 16-year-olds for free in Sweden.


Continuing to put Nigeria on the map, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun will now have the bound-and-published essay of her famous Tedx talk on feminism in London given to 16-year-olds for free in Sweden.


“This is the book I would have wanted to get for all the guys in my class when I was 16 years old,” Clara Berglund, chairwoman of the Swedish Women’s Lobby, told Books Live. “That is why it is so important that we contribute to this project. It is a gift to all students in grades two, but also a gift to ourselves and to future generations.”


In a YouTube greeting to her new teen Swedish readers, Adichie expanded on her reasoning for being such a passionate and outspoken feminist.

“For me, feminism is about justice,” she said. “I’m a feminist because I want to live in a world that is more just. I’m a feminist because I want to live in a world where a woman is never told that she can or cannot or should or should not do anything because she is a woman. I want to live in a world where men and women are happier. Where they are not constrained by gender roles. I want to live in a world where men and women are truly equal. And that’s why I’m a feminist.

“When I was 16, I don’t think I knew what the word ‘feminist’ meant. I don’t think I knew the word at all. But I was a feminist. And I hope that the 16-year-olds that will read this book in Sweden will also decide that they’re feminists. Mostly, I hope very soon that one day we will not need to be feminists. Because we will live in a world that is truly just and equal.”

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More than 100,000 copies of We Should All Be Feminists will be sent to Swedish secondary schools. The chairman of the United Nations Association of Sweden, Aleksander Gabelic, explained the reasoning behind the move.

He said: “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reminds us of what feminism is about. She makes us remember what it was that made us once again began to define ourselves as feminists. We want the book to be an introduction for girls and boys who never before have thought about gender inequalities. Therefore, we send today, “Everyone should be feminists” to all students in grade 2 in high school. We do it with the hope that they’ll read Adichie’s words and understand that feminism is the key that can unlock their cramped cages. Feminism makes it possible for both girls and boys to be themselves.”