IN WHICH The Girl Considers Feminism

Today, a co-worker said, "Did you hear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was nominated for..." my mind immediately filled in the blank with all sorts of literary awards: a Nobel, the Man Booker, a Pulitzer? "... a Grammy award?" Hmm, no. My response: "Does she sing?" Apparently, the Grammy is for Beyonce's song "Flawless," which includes a sample of Adichie's extremely popular TED talk "We Should All Be Feminists." Who knew?

We really have a moved to a new age when TED talks are part of pop songs.

Adichie is a renowned Nigerian writer. I have yet to read any of Adichie's novels, though I have always heard good things and her newest novel Americanah is on my holds list from the library (just 99 people in front of me). However, I have watched "We Should All Be Feminists," which is an excellent lecture on the term feminist and the role of gender in today's world, particularly Nigeria. If you haven't seen it before, I highly recommend watching Adichie's TED talk:

I also seem to be very behind on modern culture because I had never heard this particular Beyonce song. I just watched the video, but I'm not sure I liked it. However, the collaboration is certainly interesting if a little bizarre. While poets and song-writing often go hand and hand, you don't see too many novelists getting recognition in the music world. I wonder if Adichie will be at the Grammys.