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Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 5, 2025
Entity authorityQ54489040 ↗
Source-derived summary

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions is an epistolary form manifesto written by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Dear Ijeawele was posted on her official Facebook page on October 12, 2016, was subsequently adapted into a book, and published in print on March 7, 2017.

Before becoming a book, Dear Ijeawele was a personal e-mail written by Adichie in response to her friend, "Ijeawele", who had asked Adichie's advice on how to raise her daughter as a feminist. The result of this e-mail correspondence is the extended 62-page Dear Ijeawele manifesto, written in the form of a letter. While the manifesto was written to a female friend, the work's audience scope has been recognized to extend beyond only the mothers of daughters.

Dear Ijeawele is composed of fifteen suggestions on how to raise a feminist daughter, with references to Adichie and Ijeawele's shared Nigerian heritage and Igbo culture. Adichie was inspired to publicize the letter after becoming increasingly aware of what she recognized as ongoing gender inequality in her native Nigeria. Dear Ijeawele featured on NPR's list of "2017's Great Reads".

Synopsis

Dear Ijeawele attempts to challenge the prejudices of gender roles and expectations. with the epistolary form used as a literary device to give the reader a personal and intimate connection with the manifesto.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions” as book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016, 2017—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2017-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Dear, Ijeawele and Feminist can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q54489040. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016 and 2017.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Tracing reception history
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Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions primary sources, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions archive and Dear research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.