An Evening with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Last night the crowd of around three hundred avid fans was being so patient. Our idol was nearly a half hour late - traffic is a bear around here - but when Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie proudly strode onto the stage of the Calvert High School auditorium, all spike heels, long legs, and colorful garb, we stood and cheered. Young people see her as a feminist icon. Me? I simply think she's one of the best writers of her generation. Ten years ago I read "Half of a Yellow Sun," her novel of Nigeria's Biafran war. I've been hooked ever since.

Courtesy of the Maryland Humanities Council and the Maryland public libraries, Ms. Adichie's debut novel, "Purple Hibiscus," was this year's One Maryland/One Book read. The interview format was led by local pediatrician and author of several novels herself, Nadia Hashimi. Though she tried valiantly to ask questions about the book, the conversation veered all over the place, from religion to politics, from race to feminism, and ultimately to the surreal world under the leadership of Donald Trump.

Adichie can be prickly about certain subjects - maybe that's why we love her so much. She wouldn't speak of her collaboration with Beyoncé. Not sure what that's about. And though two of her non-fiction works have the word "feminist" in their titles, she expressed discomfort at being fetishized as a feminist icon. Though she made it clear that she speaks for herself, she was kind and empathetic to audience members who asked searching questions about how to raise children, especially boys, in the age of Trump. The answer? Allow them to be vulnerable. Adichie believes that the violence we witness daily in our lives is a direct result of repressed anger and NORMAL but unacknowledged feelings in our boys.

Ms. Hashimi, a Muslim American whose family is from Afghanistan, joined in the discussion of the politicization of religion. Not only do people fail to distinguish between culture and religion, making judgments and reaching uninformed conclusions based upon say, a hijab or a turban, but religious practitioners do a disservice to their members when they stray from the message of love. Adichie, at one time a Catholic, spoke of walking out of mass years ago while at Yale, when a priest used the pulpit to promote a local politician.

The evening went by way too quickly. I would have enjoyed listening to these two women chat all night. If I could register one disappointment it is that the local high school missed a golden opportunity to introduce their students to a purveyor of great literature that speaks to them. Why wasn't every high school English teacher on board? Where were the writing students? "Purple Hibiscus" centers around a fifteen-year-old girl, Kambili, who is physically and mentally abused by her father, a young woman who has swallowed her own voice fearful of reprisal for having an opinion. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I rejoiced with her as she slowly emerged from her cocoon under the tutelage of her uninhibited aunt and cousins.

Adichie may deny it all she wants but this novel IS a feminist manifesto and one that every high school student should have been apprised of. Here's hoping that teachers will take advantage of her other appearances around the state for One Maryland/One Read. After all, sitting in class isn't the only way to learn about the world.

On the Road with Gloria Steinem

Stunningly alive and eloquent, Gloria Steinem will be remembered, I fervently hope, for her sixty years of tireless activism and not for a tossed off comment about Bernie Sanders' young followers while she was under the temporary influence of bad boy comdedian, Bill Maher. Like Diana Athill, subject of my previous post, Ms. Steinem has embraced every phenomenal decade of her life with gusto and an unselfish interest in helping others.



 

 

I listened to the book, "My Life on the Road," in its low-key, no drama recording by actress Debra Winger. It seemed to be a fitting way to honor Steinem's admonishment to go through life listening more and speaking less - a lesson that should be adopted by our current group of presidential candidates! Steinem is so unassuming about her outsize role in the lives of women my age, as if she doesn't really get just how important she's been in the work for civil rights for all people, particularly black, female, and native American.

Gloria's writing style makes you feel that you're on a first name basis, conversational and friendly. If she spends a little too much time reminiscing about her childhood travels with her dad, a salesman who was always on the road and never met a stranger, I suppose it's because she attributes her peripatetic life to those early wanderings. In fact, she admits that she didn't settle into her own first home until she was past fifty, and then only because she feared becoming a bag lady.

A common thread among all these strong, independent women that I'm drawn to read about is their gift of self-knowledge. From Smith College, to a fiancé and a pregnancy that she didn't want or need, she credits the physician who performed the safe, but then illegal abortion, with setting her on the path of activism. A year in India, a kind of listening tour, opened up her mind to the power of small groups of women determined to make a difference. Steinem was a community organizer long before the term became synonymous with Barack Obama, and used as a slur. Just look at what these organizers have done!

Always terrified of public speaking, Steinem ironically became the spokesperson for two generations of women looking for more meaningful lives. Through innumerable political campaigns, national and local, from a fascinating look at the Eugene McCarthy bandwagon, not flattering, through the Kennedy years, to Geraldine Ferraro, and on to Obama and Hillary,  Gloria was the hard-working, nose to the grindstone, presence behind the scenes.

Particularly poignant was the final chapter of the book in which she describes being honored to attend the death of her long-time friend and activist, Wilma Mankiller, first female chief of the Cherokee nation. Long plagued by cancer, Mankiller decided to end treatment and die at home on her beloved land with friends and family attending to her needs. Not in the least bit depressing, Steinem's beautiful descriptions of the native tribe's end of life rituals was a reaffirmation of the strength of family and female relationships.

My fondest wish would be that young women and men would embrace this memoir lest they take for granted the freedoms they've come to expect. We have come a long way baby as the saying went, and we women especially, stand to lose so much over the next few years depending upon which way the electorate chooses to go. Think of those wonderful three women on the Supreme Court and thank the ones like Gloria Steinem who had the courage to speak out on the road.