Americanah
May 2013
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie / Fourth Estate
A few years ago Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was all but salivated over by some of the most distinguished literary critics around. It was well executed but soulless and consequently left me cold. Americanah is what it could have been; a book that integrated ideas and heart. But then it needed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer, part-time resident of America and firm proponent of love in its many forms, to write it. It is more deserving of debate in the blogosphere, literary pages and book groups than Freedom ever was, for what it has to say about race and colour blindness, a new class of refugee, the politics of Black hair and love.
It is a tale of many cities and ostensibly a fictional travelogue with two young Nigerians as its commentators; Ifemelu writes a satirical blog on race in America whilst Obinze fails to gain a foothold in a largely hostile England. Identities are chipped away, reconstructed and reclaimed at home and away, where difference oftentimes imposes the degradation of invisibility. Joyful and provocative; an intoxicating literary mix.
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