5m
17 Jun 2021

‘Stand up’ against social media abuse, says author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

For the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the loss of her father last year was made all the worse by her separation from him – she, stuck in the US, he, back home in Nigeria.

Then came the death of her mother, causing her to ask: “how can a heart break twice?”

Her new book, Notes on Grief, documents her despair.

And this week, in an essay posted on her website, she also confronted the strictures of the social media age – one in which young people are often afraid to air views and make mistakes.

I spoke to her about grief and social media, but first in a short reading from the book, she describes how she reacted to her father’s death in front of her young daughter.