A Private Experience

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Two women caught up in a violent street riot take shelter in an abandoned shop. A short story by the Orange Prize-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, School, Nigeria, African Literature

10 pages, Unknown Binding

First published December 27, 2008

About the author

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into more than fifty-five languages. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize; Half of a Yellow Sun, which was the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction “Best of the Best” award; Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; the story collection The Thing Around Your Neck and the essays We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. Her most recent work is an essay about losing her father, Notes on Grief, and Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, a children’s book written as Nwa Grace-James. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Reviews

[Sidharth Vardhan]

Available here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...

[Shahad takleef]

what a beautiful story , knitted in the haze of the situation
so short as it is , it fuelled me with emotions
this is a short story written by chimamanada ngozi adichie about two women taking refugee in a small store after a riot , one is Igbo and Christian , one is Muslim and Hausa
so what do these lines tell us ?
what idea does chimamanda want to convey ?
answer is :

"riots do not happen in a vacuum, that religion and ethnicity are often politicised because the ruler is safe if the hungry ruled are killing one another."

that in a riot you'd know after wards that certain side claimed themselves the attackers
but , in the scene .... everybody is victim ..

[Marritt Claassens]

Sunday afternoon binge-reading Chimamanda short stories 🤓

[Shirma]

This is such a simple yet powerful account of the interaction between two women who are strangers to each other but, through happenstance, were brought together while escaping rioting at a local market in Nigeria. One woman, a practicing muslim, the other an unfaithful catholic, were kind and helpful to each other, both victims of the ensuing religious war between Muslims and Christians.

There is not much that takes place as the two women take shelter and huddle down for the night in an old, abandon hut. However, Chimamanda connects these women through their shared fear and love for their loved ones who are missing; their genuine concern and hope that they and their loved ones would be safe in spite of the unnecessary cruelty they were forced to face as a result of religious war. The fact that two women from different walks of life could so easily find this common ground is a powerful and needed message that we are all connected and basically want the same things.

[Wen]

Fast read on how racism can spark so much hate and why It is so effing stupid to hate someone for their skin color or 'label' or for the way they dress.

SPOILERS

"She will look at only one of the corpses, naked, stiff, facedown, and it will strike her that she cannot tell if the partially burned man is Igbo or Hausa, Christian or Muslim, from looking at that charred flesh"

Can't say it enough, Adichie once again writes so well, with just a short story. Truth be told, it is such a simple concept, be respectful, kind, human and mind your business??


I love how Adichie touches on so much discrimination that goes on the world. I love her writing

[phia]

short and impactful

[Bryce Druzin]

Class transcends national boundaries. I'm a white guy from the Bay Area, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is from Nigeria, but our shared experience of growing up in positions of relative privilege means I can relate to the main character of this story.

The passage below really struck a chord with me:
Chika wonders if that is all the woman thinks of the riots, if that is all she sees them as--evil. She wishes Nnedi were here. She imagines the cocoa brown of Nnedi's eyes lighting up, her lips moving quickly, explaining that riots do not happen in a vacuum, that religion and ethnicity are often politicized because the ruler is safe if the hungry ruled are killing one another. Then Chika feels a prick of guilt for wondering if this woman's mind is large enough to grasp any of that.

I felt shame when I read this, because I recognize that guilty feeling of wondering if certain people I meet are "sophisticated" enough for a certain level of complex thinking.

Also, the uneducated Muslim woman's explanation for the riot--evil--may be more accurate than the complex reasons Chika imagines her educated sister citing. Yes, powerful people manipulate the less powerful. They urge them to hate people different than them. But at the end of the day it is the individual who picks up a machete and hacks a stranger to death.

The Muslim woman, and I imagine most in her community, resisted being manipulated into hating their Christian Igbo neighbors. So it's not that "those people"--which is how Chika views these rural Muslims--are incapable of independent thought. So what separates the ones who don't hate from the ones who hate so much they're driven to unprovoked murder? If my loved one was hacked to death for no other reason than their religion, I think evil would be a compelling argument.

The following passage also hit home:
"We have only spent a week here with our aunty, we have never even been to Kano before," Chika says, and she realizes that what she feels is this: she and her sister should not be affected by the riot. Riots like this were what she read about in newspapers. Riots like this were what happened to other people.

A friend of mine, who like me is part of the privileged class, was seriously injured during a riot in a poor part of the city he lives in. I remember having the same moment of clarity: part of my outrage was disbelief that this thing that happened "over there" had entered into my personal life.

I also thought the author's decision to tell readers that Chika's sister was before Chika found out was very interesting. It created a time travel effect: when I found out Nnedi was dead, I was sad, but when the story went back to Chika's experience hiding in that shop, I was relieved, because Chika still thought her sister was alive. It was a better reality. Chika was scared, but not devastated.

Chimamanda really packs a lot into a small amount of space. Great stuff.

[Mia]

Chills, literal chills. I got goosebumps on my flesh after reading this. I could relate to the young girl so much when she says “Riots like this were what happened to other people”. As a member of privileged class, things like riots and massacres in name of religion is only something I have heard on news. It is something that only happens to “other” people. For anyone to go through that experience, I cannot even imagine. A story that once again proves that in a war of men, women are just collateral damages.
Beautiful story.

[Rachel]

Of the two Chimamanda Ngoize Adichie short stories I read last night, this was my favorite. It tells the story of a woman caught in a riot. She's rich, and visiting, and hides with a poor woman that lives in the area, and through out she thinks, "I should not be here, these things don't happen to people like me," and then looks at the woman she's hiding with and realizes how awful it is to think that there are people these things should be happening to. The riot is an ethno-religious conflict, and the women are on opposite sides. They have no quarrel with each other, and never do.

The title refers to the narrator's realization that no matter that she's sharing the experience of the riot in a literal way, her perception of it is her own. Some really lovely examinations of class and privilege and solidarity. 

[Amber]

The more I read, the more incapable of writing book "reviews" I find myself. For the most part, I attempt to write a tidy little recount of the story to aid anyone in deciding whether or not that particular story is or isn't for them - but that doesn't feel right to do with A Private Experience.

This story does require a trigger warning for graphic violence. I'm deciding on whether or not to complete an assessment on this particular story, so if I do - I'll attempt to fill this space with a more focused stream of consciousness. If not, consider me baffled and in awe. I'd still like to write something for this, it just may be put on the back burner.

[Dotun Magbagbeola]

Nobody wins in blood and war.
A story of 2 women from 2 entirely different walks of life, falling victim to a bloody riot, in which one group of people are blamed as the perpetrators. Soon enough, we see the fact of who initiated it does not matter for any unfortunate victim involved.

Although short, it's able to grab you and make you feel certain emotions that the characters feel. Mrs. Adiche's use of present tense writing here is a lot better and easier to follow.

Overall, a pretty solid read.

[Alejandro Salgado B.]

“Una experiencia privada”, es otro de mis favoritos, aborda el tema de la religión, con dos mujeres que quedan atrapadas en una tienda, en medio de una confrontación. Ambas intercambian algunas palabras, historias, miedos, y la experiencia privada, es el ritual religioso que realiza una de ellas concerniente a su religión musulmana. Es un bello relato, con mucha intriga, y con temas importantes.

[fgtranime]

one thing I noticed so far, don't know if its intentional by the author, or reflect the authors own views.
Is that the characters look down on each other, in this story its more apparent, the Igbo girl definitely hold herself higher than the uneducated poor Hausa women she stuck with, if not for the Hausa women saving her, I don't think they will ever see in each other's eyes

[Alyssa]

read for school.

really, really enjoyed this short story. i enjoyed how despite all the turmoil in nigeria and each main character being from a different side of the country, the women were able to unite and have a connection with one another!

[Concertina]

Qué bonito y qué horrible es.
Hay una manera bastante elegante de Chimamanda para escribir algo tan fuerte como la guerra y el odio.

[burger queen]

felt a little lost at times... wasn't a big fan of the constantly altering time periods

[Terri]

Let us gush at the gorgeousness and truth of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's writing. What a star. What an inspiration.

[harvey jade hanson]

Read for class; no rating.

[Sofía Polar]

adichie does it again (i love this woman)

[Rolf]

The story here felt secondary to the thematic goal of exploring Christian-Muslim relations, but it was still very thoughtful.

[daniiel]

holy fat fuck

[Saleh Razzouk]

It is not a book rather a story of her collection. Very sad and poetic.

[rafa]

gostei da forma como a autora mescla presente e futuro

[Tony]

This original short story from 2008 is another story from Adichie that brings some understanding to the plight of the Nigerian people. But not just the Nigerian but any people living in a place of unrest. A place where a sense of safety can turn without warning. Chika is a fish out of water her predicament is something that happens to other people not her, it's something she reads about or hears about on the news, again not something that happens to her. This is the modern world, things like this don't happen to people in the modern world.

[TheReadingDumby]

i quite like the way adichie writes. i like the plot and stories as wholes, but i also really love the depth of culture and the understanding you can gain by reading these short stories. this was really good. i recommend.

[Andrea W]

3.5/5

[Noha]

An unlikely encounter of two women who are supposed to be 'enemies' during the brutal Nigerian Civil War. Haunting, touching and unforgettable.

[Tshiamo Motiang]

I was a bit lost with the story and the end left me hanging