Award winning author, Chimamanda Adichie has revealed that she was angry to discover that an Hillary Clinton’s Twitter bio starts with the word “wife”.
During the PEN World Voices Festival on Sunday, Adichie had a chat with Clinton after she delivered the Arthur Miller Freedom To Write Lecture.
Adichie, who acknowledged she was honoured to interview Clinton, interrogated the former US first lady on why “wife” comes first on her Twitter bio.
Clinton’s bio reads, “Wife, mom, grandma, women+kids advocate, FLOTUS, Senator, SecState, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, 2016 presidential candidate”.
Reacting to it, Adichie said to Clinton: “In your Twitter account, the first word that describes you is ‘wife’. And when I saw that, I have to confess that I felt just a little bit upset.
“And then I went and I looked at your husband’s Twitter account, and the first word was not ‘husband’.”
Clinton who didn’t take the criticism personal replied: “When you put it like that, I’m going to change it”.
Speaking further, she said: “It shouldn’t be either/or. It should be that if you are someone who is defining yourself by what you do and what you accomplish, and that is satisfying, then more power to you.
“That is how you should be thinking about your life, and living it.
“If you are someone who primarily defines your life in relationship to others, then more power to you, and live that life the way Barbara Bush lived that life, and how proud she was to do it.
“But I think most of us as women in today’s world end up in the middle. Wanting to have relationships, wanting to invest in them, nurture them, but also pursuing our own interests.”
At the age of nineteen, Chimamanda left for the United States. She gained a scholarship to study communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia for two years, and she went on to pursue a degree in communication and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University, where she also wrote articles for the university journal, the Campus Lantern. While in Connecticut, she stayed with her sister Ijeoma, who runs a medical practice close to the university.