Chimamanda writes micronovel about Melania Trump

Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a micronovel about United States’ president’s wife, Melania Trump, titled ‘Janelle Asked to the Bedroom’. The story, which debuted exclusively on The New York Time’s T Magazine Instagram account and its website, “extends the world she created last June, in a story told from the perspective of the […]

Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a micronovel about United States’ president’s wife, Melania Trump, titled ‘Janelle Asked to the Bedroom’.

The story, which debuted exclusively on The New York Time’s T Magazine Instagram account and its website, “extends the world she created last June, in a story told from the perspective of the first lady.” 

In the story, told from Janelle’s (the central character) perspective, the pilates instructor meets a despondent Mrs. T in her apartment bedroom. The two have a brief, uncomfortable exchange in which Mrs. T reveals, among other things, that she is obsessed with Michelle Obama. She shows Janelle a folder full of saved photos of the former US first lady.

The story is part of a narrative within American pop culture of the reticent Mrs. Trump as a pitiable figure.

In 2016 the New York Times Book Review asked Adichie to write a short story about the American election and she did. It was also a work of fiction titled ‘The Arrangements’.

Adichie is one of seven cover stars of T Magazine’s October 22 Greats issue. She is author of the internationally acclaimed novel, ‘Americanah’.