From the award-winning author of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun,’ a powerful story of love, race and identity.
As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America. There she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
Fifteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger. But after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?
Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives, ‘Americanah’ is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today’s globalized worldAs an author I love Adiche’s writing, her previous books were well written and full of emotion. I was not disappointed by this book; it lived up to her amazing ability to evoke in you a sense of being there, of observing each and every part of the story.
The story is relevant; it explores the issue of race and immigration. Well written and an easy read with characters I could like and feel empathy with.
It is a long book and a long timescale, personally I would have enjoyed the timescale to have been shorter and the length of the book filled with more depth and the chance to know some of the more minor characters better and for longer. In that sense it felt it was skimming across time, and not allowing the reader to stay long enough to know the tale.
That aside the novel is in essence the story of life in Nigeria and their expectations and reality of life in America, an emotional and provocative book that was quick to read, but kept you thinking about it long after you had finished that last page.
Don’t judge this book on the other books she has written; judge it on its own merit and what it is about, and the way that Adiche makes us look at these issues in a thought provoking way, while providing us with a brilliant read.
Aug 02