Award-winning Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has revealed why an unnamed international magazine rejected her photos
The author, sharing the rejected photos on her Instagram page on Tuesday, said they were rejected because they look too glamorous.
She wrote “It was a cover shoot for an international magazine. Or it was supposed to be. The magazine rejected the photos. They didn’t want me ‘looking too glamorous,’ they said.
“And so the cover didn’t happen. What does one do with rejected photos but show them anyway, primarily for the vanity-boosting benefits of such an act, but also to celebrate and thank these talented people in Lagos.”
In September, Adichie advised European countries to return stolen African historic artifacts to their home countries.
She stated this at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, Germany.
Adichie said “Art lives in history and history lives in art. Much of what we call African arts are also documents, they tell African stories. Some are literal in their storytelling, other sculptures and carvings are more metaphorical, they speak to the dignity of the people, to their world view and to their aspirations.
“We cannot change the past but we can change our blindness to the past. When we talk about these arts that were stolen, we are told that they cannot be returned to Africa because we cannot take good care of them.
“It is not merely condescending to say ‘I cannot return what I stole from you because you would not take good care of it’. It is also lacking in basic logic; since when has the basis of ownership been taking good care of what is owned.
“This position is paternalistic arrogance of the most stunning sort. It does not matter whether Africans, Asians or Latin America can take care of art stolen from them; what matters is that it is theirs.
“A nation that believes in the rule of law cannot possibly be debating whether to return stolen goods. It just returns them.
“If the dignity of those from whom the art were stolen does not matter; then surely this idea should matter that Europe should be what it claims to be; live up to the ideas to which you define yourself.
“Obviously, I don’t think everything should be sent back to the countries of which they came, not everything was stolen; but those things that are sacred, those things for whom people were killed those things that have in them the stains of innocent blood should be returned.
“This decision is not only about the Humboldt forum; it is about museums all over the world in France, in the Vatican, in Britain. I must acknowledge that Germany is the first of the powerful European nations that have made the gesture towards returning the Benin bronzes.”
