In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s world, Melania Trump is listless, and a bit racist.
In a new short story by the author of the 2013 novel Americanah, Adichie imagines an exchange between “Mrs. T” and her black Pilates instructor, Janelle. The story extends the world she created (paywall) last June, in a story told from the perspective of the first lady. The Nigerian-born writer published “Janelle Asked to the Bedroom” on T Magazine’s site (paywall) and in a series on Instagram Friday.
In the story, told from Janelle’s 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.
Read the story in full: