BREAKING: Chimamanda to deliver landmark BBC Reith Lecture

Award-winning writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will deliver the landmark first BBC Reith Lecture for 2022.

The iconic Reith Lectures were introduced by the BBC in 1948, in order to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John (later Lord) Reith, the corporation’s first director-general. Lord Reith believed that broadcasting should be a public service which enriches the intellectual and cultural life of the world. To maintain this tradition, each year the BBC selects a leading figure to deliver a series of lectures. According to the BBC, since their inauguration, over the years the Reith lectures have provided insights “into the work of some of the world’s greatest thinkers”.

Previous Reith lecturers include various Nobel Laureates such as Nobel Peace Prize awardee Aung Sung Su Kyi, and Nobel Literature Prize winners Bertrand Russell and Professor Wole Soyinka. Other distinguished personalities include world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking; and the former Governor of both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney.

Adichie’s selection to deliver the prestigious lecture represents yet another distinction. The writer has received global recognition for her work, which has been translated into over thirty languages and won numerous awards and prizes.

Adichie has consistently produced thought-provoking articles and delivered compelling talks to audiences around the world: including two milestone TED Talks, ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ (2009), which has become one of the most-viewed TED Talks in history; and ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ (2012) – which was subsequently published as a book due to popular demand.

2022 is a landmark year for the BBC, as it is the 100th anniversary of its establishment. To mark the centenary, the BBC chose to have a special series of lectures on freedom, by four prominent individuals, based on a speech by former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Controller of BBC Radio 4, Mohit Bakaya said “In this BBC centenary year, I wanted to seek out four perspectives on this complex idea based on FDRs famous Four Freedoms speech – a speech made in 1941 at such a precarious moment for the world. I’m delighted that these four brilliant thinkers have agreed to explore freedom as it relates to their knowledge and expertise.”

Adichie will deliver a lecture on freedom of speech, with the other lectures (on the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear respectively), being delivered by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams; Darren McGarvey, prize-winning author and music artist; and Dr. Fiona Hill, foreign affairs specialist and former adviser to U.S Presidents George W. Bush, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

The lecture will be recorded before a live audience at the BBC News Broadcasting House in London on October 31st, and broadcast on BBC Radio from November 30th, 2022.