How reading Nigerian poet’s collection Questions for Ada changed the life of director of Hong Kong NGO Help for Domestic Workers
- Manisha Wijesinghe read Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo’s Questions for Ada while she was in the US, and loved the themes about women and being away from home
- She cried the first time she read it, and returns to the book often, as the poems speak to the experiences of the Hong Kong domestic helpers her NGO assists
Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo’s collection Questions for Ada (2015) is a passionate, lyrical exploration of issues including love, abusive relationships, the pressures placed on women in society and the sense of dislocation caused by migration.
Manisha Wijesinghe, Sri Lanka-born executive director of Hong Kong NGO HELP for Domestic Workers, which works to advance the legal rights of the city’s helpers, explains how it changed her life.
I came across it in 2019. I was in the United States for about a month, and a friend there recommended it; it was something that had resonated with her. I had not come across her work at all. My friend said there’s this phenomenal Nigerian poet who talks about women’s experiences. There are some universal themes: women finding themselves and their identity.
I was travelling for a conference in December that year and I was feeling despondent because I wasn’t able to go home for Christmas. One verse stuck with me:
“So, here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.