“Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Some books arrive with a great deal of prior reputation, and Americanah was one I had seen recommended repeatedly before finally picking it up. It is always a risk, approaching a novel that has already been so widely praised. Here, though, the expectation feels largely justified.
What struck me most was the depth of characterisation. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes with an attentiveness to interiority that makes her characters feel not only believable, but recognisable. Ifemelu, in particular, is not immediately likeable, and at times actively resists the reader’s sympathy. Part of my reading experience grappled with this dislike; I spent time wondering if Adichie had unwittingly created an unrelatable character, or if I was simply reading into it, and my own subconscious bias was coming through. Yet this characterisation seems, by the end, entirely deliberate. She is written as a layered, contradictory figure, and the novel does not ask us to excuse her, only to understand her.
Obinze, by contrast, feels quietly remarkable. His storyline, particularly his experience as an undocumented migrant, opened up a perspective I had not encountered in fiction before. It is handled with restraint but also with clarity, and it has prompted me to think more seriously about seeking out literature that explores similar experiences.
The novel does take time to settle. The opening section, for me, required a degree of patience, and it was only after roughly a third of the book that I felt fully immersed. That said, the investment is worthwhile. Once the narrative gathers momentum, it becomes difficult to step away from.
Having finished it, I found myself immediately drawn to Adichie’s wider work, a sign, perhaps, of a novel that does more than simply satisfy; it redirects your reading life.