The Visit

Black Stars

By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Narrated by: Nyambi Nyambi

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.

©2021 by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Through the Looking Glass and Around the Bend

The Visit was not what I thought it would be but was MUCH more than I ever could have expected from a short story. In this world that has figuratively transported men through the looking glass and around the bend into a reality where women are the dominant gender, the author gives us a glimpse at what society at large would look like if controlled by the “fairer sex.” All The Handmaid’s Tale-esque troupes are avoided, dodging the overused if-women-ran-the-world-life-would-be-a-walking-dystopian-novel-for-men narrative.

The aggravations and transgressions toward men are at the beginning are slight, but escalate quickly, albeit quietly to traumas women in our world traverse daily. From micro aggressions from spouses who’s power come only from the sex between their legs and being the gender held to esteem, to narrowly sidestepping atrocities that should be experienced by no one, but are inevitably covered over by silence that’s paid for by hidden tears in the wee hours of the night. This story doesn’t aim to show the reader/listener what life would be like IF women ruled the world, but to open up a window into what it IS like to be a woman ruled in our own.

Real Nigerian Accents please!!!

Hated the narration.
can we have unadulterated Nigerian accents? the story lost its allure because I could not get past that.

Interesting

I enjoyed this story. It is interesting, men being treated like women. Reverse roles, yes.

Roll Reversal

The Visit is thought provoking. The reader was good. I wanted to like this story and just didn’t. Why would women in a female dominant culture act like the men in our current male dominant culture? Something didn’t ring true.

Humor in culture

Interesting storyline. I enjoyed the humor as the author speaks of cultural attitudes and makes fun of some of them. the ending was anticlimatic

Puts the shoe on the other foot

This story has quite an interesting premise. Although it's set in a matriarchal society there's nothing idyllic about it. It presents a world where society, and women, act just as men do in our society and the men have the same expectations and restrictions put on them as women. One man who does as society expects who is visited by an old friend that doesn't, and it is definitely an entertaining listen. The narrator does a wonderful job especially of conveying what Obina is feeling especially after Eze arrives.

Very good

Different perspective. I enjoyed it!

Looking for more by this author that I can listen to.

Refreshing

It was a refreshing take on gender issues without outwardly bashing of the opposite. Sometimes it's good see how we are viewed as we are judging others.

Thoughtful

There is so much going on in this story. It brings up issues of gender equality across cultures.It is very well written and performed.

Gender roles???

By switching the gender roles, the author makes you really see how sad the world really is. Great story, I wish it was longer.