Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Conversation, Southbank Centre

Domestic violence is being decriminalised, reproductive rights are at risk, not even a hairline crack weakens the glass ceiling and one of the most powerful men in the Western world has an alarmingly hands-on approach to female genitalia. Now, more than ever, We Should all be Feminists. So let's take lesson from the woman who wrote the feminist manifesto for the 21st century.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie comes to the Southbank Centre as part of the Women of the World Festival, to reflect on what it means to be female in 2017. She will draw from her latest book Dear Ijeawele, which outlines 15 compelling, direct and wryly funny suggestions on how to raise a daughter as a feminist.

The Nigerian writer who stole the hearts of the English-speaking world with some of the best writing of the last decade. Her books are full of hard-edged heroines, often caught between continents, navigating issues of race and gender prejudice, and she is best known for We Should all be Feminists, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah.

Her impact goes beyond the literati, to capture public imagination. Beyoncé sampled Adichie's generation-definingly popular TEDx talk 'Why we should all be feminist', on her track Flawless, saying "We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'."



Adichie herself had to fight to break free from the life laid out for her as a woman by her middle-class Nigerian parents: She began training in medicine and pharmacy in Nigeria, but at age 19 she left for America, where she eventually graduated with a creative writing masters from John Hopkins University.

She lives between Nigeria and the US and rarely speaks in the UK, but when she does she is brilliant; her appearance last year at the Southbank was a sell out. We have no doubt that now, following the Women's March and ahead of a new book release, Adichie's talk will be just as over-subscribed.