I also notice that American women, European women, very easily start to think that the problem of gender is much worse in Nigeria than it is where they are from. But many Nigerian women say, “I never thought about it at all.” They always thought it was a foreign thing. I think maybe there is one big difference: I’ve talked to lots of American women who say they thought feminism was no longer relevant. Has it resonated differently in Nigeria than in America? The issues are largely the same, but they manifest differently. When I talk about all the bullshit ideas about gender, I also believed many of those ideas and they are things that I still struggle with.

I didn’t fall down from the sky with all this knowledge. When I talk to people, I try to come from a place of not knowing at all. I really believe in the power of narrative-it humanizes the story. You have a sense of humor in the speech-can humor help convey important political points? I approach it as a fiction writer. So I said, 'Okay, I’ll do it.' But I thought, This is not going to be popular, because it’s obvious that feminism for many people is a bad word, even if you believe in it, the word is off-putting. But then I also realized the one thing I cared about is gender, feminism. I had done one TED Talk and I felt that I had already said what I could, in fact, say, and I didn’t think I had anything else worth talking about. What was it like to have your ideas about feminism go so viral? It felt strange and surprising. Reached by phone in Lagos, Adichie spoke to about the overwhelming success of her speech and what it means to talk politics with the whole world.

Today, the speech comes out in eBook form, which you can purchase here. Previously best known for her fiction, Adichie delivered a TEDx Talk in 2013 so nuanced and rousing, Beyoncé sampled it in her empowerment anthem “Flawless.” Titled “We Should All Be Feminists,” Adichie’s oration weaved together human stories from her youth in Nigeria with a complicated discourse about gender roles in the modern world and a literal textbook definition of “feminism,” which she read aloud about halfway through. If anyone has the skills to make a speech about feminism go viral, it’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Lagos-based writer whose ideas are as complex as her language is straightforward.

Adichie feminism