Chimamanda Is One Of The 200 Women Who Will Change the Way You See the World

Nigerian best-selling author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been featured in a new photography book by Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday titled 200 Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World.

200 Women photography book cover

This is a time when women’s rights are under constant attack from politicians all over the world. This book reminds us how far we have come; it informs and inspires us to tighten up our activism and be better allies.

Even if you are not personally disabled, marginalised or affected by what’s happening, you have members of your family and social circle who suffer an assault on their rights.

The book contains insightful interviews from the most inspiring, active, and intelligent women in the world and founders of some of the most successful and prominent social-justice movements of our time, including author Adichie, co-founder Black Lives Matter Alicia Garza, author and winner of The Booker Prize Margaret Atwood, and National Farm Workers Association founder Dolores Huerta, author and feminist Roxane Gay, head of the Children’s Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman, and many other great women. Some of these women were abused in one way or the other or homeless, but found a way to fight back and stay strong.

This is a journey into 200 minds who have thought about the world’s problems and have many solutions that are already being implemented. The world will be a better place if more women are given the opportunity to lead and be a part of its development.

The 395-paged book includes interviews from the women and their portraits which were photographed by Kieran E. Scott as they shared unique replies to five fundamental questions:

• What really matters to you?
• What brings you happiness?
• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
• What would you change if you could?
• Which single word do you most identify with?

Keep reading for a small sample of what the book has to offer.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Photo credit: Kieran E. Scott / Chronicle Books

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus, We Should All Be Feminists, and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.

Q. What would you change if you could?

I can’t pick just one thing; I would eliminate all forms of gender, racial and religious injustice. The issues are their own, independent issues, but they cannot be analysed in isolation from one another. It’s very complex and is always a work in progress for me — the issues are connected and they are not, but, however strong their connection to one another is, they’ve got to go!

Q. Which single word do you most identify with?

Human.

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood. Photo credit: Kieran E. Scott / Chronicle Books

Margaret Atwood is the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, and The Robber Bride.

Q. What would you change if you could?

The most important thing right now for us as a species is that we must avoid killing the oceans. If we kill the oceans, our oxygen supply will plummet. The blue-green algae and marine algae make approximately 60 per cent of the oxygen that we breathe; were the oceans to die, the oxygen supply would become a lot more skimpy. A great number of people would die, and the rest would become very stupid. Our brains would be functioning at about the level of somebody on the top of Mount Everest. How well are people unable to breathe enough oxygen to function going to get on at that point? Yet, we have advanced technology, so the thought of allowing the oceans to die is terrible.

If I could wave a magic wand, I would let the oceans be de-acidified. And I would let all the plastic be taken out of them. Plastic is a hard issue to get around, especially when you think of how many things in our lives are now dependent on plastic parts, including our phones, our computers, a lot of the parts of our cars and the things in our homes. We really need to find a solution to what happens to those plastics long term.

I am annoyingly chipper, but that doesn’t mean there is ground for hope. I think that most people have hope built into them, because a species without hope built into it wouldn’t last very long. So, we keep hoping for the next breakthrough, which keeps people working at the next breakthrough — if we didn’t hope, we wouldn’t do it.

Q. Which single word do you most identify with?

And. It means there is.

You can get a copy here.