Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate 2017

Copyright © 2016, 2017 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

This is a slightly expanded version of a letter written by the author as a Facebook post on 12 October 2016

Source ISBN: 9780008275709

Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008241049

Version: 2018-01-11

Dedication

For Uju Egonu.

And for my baby sis, Ogechukwu Ikemelu.

With so much love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Dear Ijeawele,

About the Author

Also by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

About the Publisher

Introduction

When a couple of years ago a friend of mine from childhood, who’d grown into a brilliant, strong, kind woman, asked me to tell her how to raise her baby girl a feminist, my first thought was that I did not know.

It felt like too huge a task.

But I had spoken publicly about feminism and perhaps that made her feel I was an expert on the subject. I had over the years also helped care for many babies of loved ones; I had worked as a babysitter and helped raise my nephews and nieces. I had done a lot of watching and listening, and I had done even more thinking.

In response to my friend’s request, I decided to write her a letter, which I hoped would be honest and practical, while also serving as a map of sorts for my own feminist thinking. This book is a version of that letter, with some details changed.

Now that I, too, am the mother of a delightful baby girl, I realize how easy it is to dispense advice about raising a child when you are not facing the enormously complex reality of it yourself.

Still, I think it is morally urgent to have honest conversations about raising children differently, about trying to create a fairer world for women and men.

My friend sent me a reply saying she would ‘try’ to follow my suggestions.

And in rereading these as a mother, I too am determined to try.

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