Faith Adiele: Lady Problems

In this episode of Badass Black Girl, MJ talks with Nigerian-Nordic writer, speaker, teacher, storyteller, and mentor Faith Adiele about the role identity plays in informing her art. They discuss an experience Faith had with fibroids and how it led to her book The Nigerian-Nordic Girl's Guide to Lady Problems, and the broader implications for Black bodies in the industrial medical complex. The two discuss Faith's project in collaboration between HBO/Max and the meditation app Calm. Faith talks about the experience of reconnecting with her African roots and the similarities between Nordic and Nigerian cultures, and how she manages to stay centered and focused on self care during the pandemic and chaos of 2020.

Faith Adiele was born to a Nigerian father and a Nordic-American mother, and the PBS film My Journey Home documents her travels abroad to find her father and siblings, while the audio and e-book, The Nigerian-Nordic Girl's Guide to Lady Problems, establishes her tri-cultural POV. Her account of flunking out of Harvard and ordaining as the first black Buddhist nun of Thailand, Meeting Faith (W.W. Norton), received the PEN Open Book Award for Memoir. A popular speaker, storyteller, teacher/mentor and emcee, Adiele has presented at universities, churches and community centers around the world; worked as a diversity trainer and community activist; and taught memoir and travel writing in Bali, Chautauqua, Finland, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Switzerland. Her writings on travel and culture have been widely anthologized.