Akwaeke Emezi: Non-binary author shares heartbreak at Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The non-binary writer has also shared disappointment about transphobia in the wider African writing community

Akwaeke Emezi attended a writing workshop by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
DISAPPOINTED: Akwaeke Emezi says they also faced consequences when they came out as non-binary (Image via Getty Images)

NIGERIAN AUTHOR Akwaeke Emezi said that fellow Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pulled support for their book, after coming across their tweets online. 

The non-binary writer has also shared disappointment about transphobia in the wider African writing community.

The author’s comments on Twitter came after Adichie’s interview in The Guardian .

Emezi said: “This is not the first time Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has dismissed people’s condemnation of transphobia as ‘noise’”

A former student

Emezi says they graduated from Adichie’s writing workshop. 

Then, it seems they retweeted critique of Adichie’s views. 

The writer claims that two days after their debut novel Freshwater was released, Adichie then asked “that her name be removed from my bio everywhere because of my tweets online.”

They added: “Most were about transphobia.” 

Adichie had edited and written an introduction to their work Freshwater, according to the writer.

They say Adichie let them decide whether or not to keep her name in their books’ acknowledgements and they chose to do so. 

A heartbreaking decision

Emezi added that they had been nervous to call Adichie out, because she holds such weight in the African writing community. 

On Twitter, they added: “ I speak for those of us who genuinely loved and looked up to her, that broke our hearts.”

They went on to say: “It’s performative allyship with trans people when Black trans women are murdered, but contempt and mockery when we hold your faves accountable for the transphobia that harms them in real life and *contributes* to those murders. Y’all are truly the weakest link, my God.

Towards the end of their Twitter thread, the non-binary writer said: “There are so many communities I used to be a part of and got pushed out of simply for existing truthfully as myself, for seeing and pointing at true things, where staying would have meant violence.”

The controversy comes during trans awareness week. 

Comments Form

1 Comment

  1. | Cleis Abeni

    It is my hope that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will one day BELIEVE, speak, write, and/or act in the following ways:

    1) Black WOMEN of trans experience are BLACK WOMEN, full stop.

    2) WOMEN of trans experience are WOMEN, full stop.

    3) I, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, do not support J. K. Rowling’s bigoted, hateful, harmful, mean-spirited, unnecessarily and frequently expressed transphobic views.

    4) I, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, apologize without equivocation for my transphobic perspective and statements. I am learning to be caring, supportive, and accepting of all people, including women of trans experience.

    5) I, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, will use my clout, prestige, power, and privilege as a well-paid, wealthy author to speak out against transphobia in a way that is NOT self-serving or laced with gaslighting and equivocations.

    6) Before I, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, say another word about transgender people, I will actually reach out to BLACK WOMEN of trans experience (especially Black women authors of trans experience) and get to know them and empathize with their hurt when words are used to dis-empower them or disregard their womanhood or personhood. I will then speak in alignment with Black women of trans experience’s agency.

    7) I, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, repudiate the conservative, white supremacist men and women who now celebrate and use my essay (entitled “IT IS OBSCENE: A TRUE REFLECTION IN THREE PARTS” published at Chimamanda.com on 15 JUNE, 2021) as a weapon to advance their outsize bigotry and hatred towards trans people and all marginalized and oppressed people standing up for justice and flourishing.

    All my hopes,

    Cleis Abeni

    Reply

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