The Visit (Black Stars, #1)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
As a powerful matriarchy reshapes the world, two men—old friends—confront the past and future in a bracing speculative short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah. One night in Lagos, two former friends reunite. Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Visit is part of Black Stars, a multi-dimensional collection of speculative fiction from Black authors. Each story is a world much like our own. Read or listen to them in a single sitting.
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0As a powerful matriarchy reshapes the world, two men—old friends—confront the past and future in a bracing speculative short story
But what was the point??
The only speculative thing about this was the idea of creating a world with a gender reversal of our own society. Women are the powerful ones because they do all the work to create life. Men are outlawed from masturbating because it wastes possible future children. They're expected to marry and support their wives, who take on the work and traditional bread winning roles. Everything about our messed up gender roles are reversed in this short story and, okay, fine. That's a neat idea. BUT WHAT WAS THE POINT?
Adichie creates a quick glimpse into the life of a man who is married to a powerful, hard working woman. An old friend comes to visit him in Nigeria after having lived in America for a while, and he has some frustration with their current societal norms. And then the story ends.
Was the point to show how absurd it would be if gender roles were reversed and the men were the ones who had to stay at home? This story was too short to do anything except present this world that Adichie thought up, and nothing else. It felt like the creation of the world itself was supposed to speak as commentary and an indictment of our cultural ideals, but it still felt very weak in that regard.
Not the best start to this short story collection on Kindle Unlimited, but I'm hoping we can only go up from here.
0Obvious and ultimately a little pointless. There’s no story in here, just the hammering of a message that already feels outdated in its lack of nuance.
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