Why did I love this book?
I admire the author's ability to write about the conflicting mesh of emotions she had to cope with after her father's unexpected demise. After losing my mother in 2021, I realized that grief isn't a linear process. Instead, it often felt like I was navigating unfamiliar terrain without a roadmap.
Adichie's memoir helped me understand that grief is a “cruel kind of education,” and we need to equip ourselves for it by having more meaningful conversations about death. Notes on Grief also encouraged me to view grief as an opportunity for self-reflection and spiritual growth.
2 authors picked Notes on Grief as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A personal and powerful essay on loss from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.
'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language'
On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria.
In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy's girl, remembers her beloved father.…
