Letters
Chimamanda Adichie and the Journalist
Couple of days ago, precisely on the 3rd of March, the multiple award winning star, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, blasted a journalist for addressing her as Mrs. Chimamanda during an interview session. Minutes later, the news went viral on the web and people from all part of the world began offering their views or rather, stand on the issue. The women mostly, felt the journalist crossed the uncrossable boundary and deserved what he got while the men, felt indifferent.
“Before we start this interview please, I just want to say that my name is Chimamanda Adichie. That’s how I want it; that’s how I’m addressed, and it is not Mrs but Miss. Ms: that’s how I want it. I am saying this, because I just got a mail from my manager this morning. It seems that there are people who attended the church service, and they wrote about it, addressing me as Mrs. Chimamanda (Esega). I didn’t like that at all. So my name is Chimamanda Adichie, full stop!” she told the SUN newspaper reporter.
When the interviewer said, “but people know that you’re married. As an Igbo girl, you know our culture”, Chimamanda aptly responded with “What does our culture do? Let me tell you about our culture. This thing that you are calling our culture –that when you marry somebody, you’ll start calling her Mrs. It is not our culture; it is Western culture. If you want to talk about our culture, you need to go to people in real Igbo land. But it is true. My grandfather’s name is David. His name is also Nwoye. They call him Nwoye Omeni.
Now considering the fact that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a married woman, but publicly refusing to be addressed as one, do you think its a good sign of true married Nigerian woman?
