Americanah

I love Americanah for its brutal honesty about racial hierarchies in the USA, social divsions in Nigeria and for its wry humour throughout. I found it very thought provoking as well as thoroughly entertaining.

Exquisitely written and profoundly wise, this is one of my all-time favorite novels. Ifemulu and Obinze meet in high school, forming a deep attachment that continues into university. When political turmoil in Nigeria forces them to emigrate to separate countries, their love story comes to an unexpected halt.

As I read this book, I was moved by Ifemulu’s struggle to recapture her sense of self and stirred by the grief she felt, both for her broken relationship and for her country. Alternating between Nigeria and the USA, the novel transported me into Ifemulu’s world, making me reflect anew on questions… show more.

I love a decades-spanning love story, and this book delivers, complete with separation and longing, the inner psychology and personal journeys of the two main characters, and a satisfying, hopeful coming together—FINALLY!—at the end.

I also learned a ton about race and the differences between the American Black experience and the African Black experience, but in the best way it is possible to learn: fully immersed in a story that’s entertaining and propulsive. I was emotionally invested in Ifemelu and Obinze from the start, and that’s all I really ask of the fiction I love best. 

Is it an oversimplification of this novel to call it a love story? Absolutely. This is one of those impossibly great novels that cover themes ranging from identity and coming of age to race, and it is nearly impossible to put them in a box. It is beautifully written on a line level and critically acclaimed, and it is much more than a “love story.”

However, I would argue that it is one of the most beautiful love stories ever written. The love between the characters is heart-wrenching and real, and when I reached the end, I cried. I will… show more.

This book is the best love story I’ve read, full stop. There’s nothing like the first time you fall in love, and Ifemelu and Obinze’s relationship reminded me of that feeling—its paralyzing awkwardness and overwhelming joy.

Before I read this book, I’d never thought about what it must be like for immigrants from Africa to encounter (and enter) the long and tortured story of race in America for the first time, and the novel gave me a lot to think about on that score. I also love a novel that takes me somewhere I’ve never been, and the scenes of… show more.

Discussing Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with my book club was a revealing experience.

Among our members are Mexicans who have lived in the U.S. and Europe as well as Americans with Cuban, Trinidadian, and European roots currently choosing to live in Mexico. Our immigration stories span the gamut of privilege, and yet we all connected with certain aspects of this book. 

With her nuanced portrayal of racism on three continents, the author made us reflect and squirm even as all of us grew ever more enthralled with the story. Adichie is a rare talent.

Great fiction books can teach us how inequality operates in everyday life better than any scientific research. 

Americanah is the love story of Ifemelu and Obinze, whose lives diverge when one moves to the US and the other to the UK to converge fifteen years later back in Nigeria. 

Through their life stories, we understand what intersectionality really means: class, gender, and race interact to make inequality and discrimination particularly problematic. 

Adichie is a fantastic writer who combines humor and kindness to reflect the complexities of contemporary inequality within and across borders.

For better or worse, living in a foreign country often forces a reassessment of the way the world works, both at home and abroad. Race and authenticity are at the center of this novel, wrapped around a love story, exposing the hollowness of certain assumptions while taking a more critical view of Western and African society. Despite this, Adichie’s writing never comes off as sneering or condescending, like the Americanah of the title: self-important Nigerians returning home from overseas.