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| Americanah |
by
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Sweeping love story meets meditation on race relations:
this is Adichie at her best.
Ifemelu grows up in Nigeria and in high school, meets
Obinze, the love of her life. Sounds
cliché, but Adichie’s writing makes it so real, so heartfelt, that even the
most jaded readers will want this love to flourish.
But, as often happens after a high school romance, things
change. In a country where children are
primed to move abroad when they reach adulthood, Ifemelu moves to the United
States. It is there that she discovers
the concept of race. In Nigeria, race is
not something she ever thinks about. In
the U.S., her life is defined by race.
She must learn her place in a complicated racial hierarchy and discovers
that she is on the bottom. As she
struggles to find work, Ifemelu begins to blog about her experiences.
Race is a central concept in the book as Adichie touches
on everything from the acceptability of wearing your hair in braids, to the
racial divide between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks.
Her life evolves in the U.S., and Ifemelu begins to
thrive. But something is pulling her
back to Nigeria. Which brings us back to
Obinze. Now married with a child, Obinze
and Ifemelu find each other again. Will
their love return after all these years?
What follows may bring some readers to tears.
