3 Nigerian Writers Short listed For Commonwealth Book Prize 2013!

3 Nigerian Writers Short listed For Commonwealth Book Prize 2013! 



Three Nigerian authors are among the 21 writers shortlisted for the 2013 highly coveted Commonwealth Book Prize and they are competing against five writers from Australia, five from India, three from the United Kingdom, two from Canada, one from Jamaica, one from South Africa and one from Sri Lanka

It is really a tough competition.



The three Nigerian writers are Ifeanyi Ajaegbo, Chibundu Onuzo and E.E. Sule.

The following are the titles of  their entries with the synopses.



Sarah House



 



  

Nita wakes up one night to discover herself in a dark world very
different from the life of opportunities promised to her by Slim, the
man she loved and trusted to take her away from the small island town of
Opobo, Nigeria. Soon she realises she is a slave, bought and sold
without her consent and forced into a life of prostitution and sleazy
strip clubs.


Every day Nita walks a tightrope of survival surrounded by vicious
pimps and thugs. She meets Tega, a fellow slave lured into prostitution
by Slim; she is sold to Madam, who runs Sarah House and makes money
from young girls and children; she finds favour with Chief, an
influential politician who provides protection for Madam’s illicit
business in human trafficking, and she must survive Lothar, a renegade
porn film maker. Life in this nightmare world gets more complicated when
Nita meets pretty, young Damka and is approached by a police detective
working undercover.

When Damka disappears and Nita discovers the child’s bloodied
clothes in a room in Sarah House, she knows she has to work with the
police in spite of the dangers to her own life.







 IFEANYI AJAEGBO is a development consultant and communications
practitioner who lives and works in Port Harcourt in Nigeria. His
writing has won awards and fellowships, including the 2005 African
regional prize for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Sarah House
is his first novel.





The Spider King’s Daughter



 




  

The Spider King’s Daughter’ is a modern-day Romeo and
Juliet set against the backdrop of a changing Lagos, a city torn between
tradition and modernity, corruption and truth, love and family loyalty.
Seventeen-year-old Abike Johnson is the favourite child of her wealthy
father. She lives in a sprawling mansion in Lagos, protected by armed
guards and ferried everywhere in a huge black jeep. But being her
father’s favourite comes with uncomfortable duties, and she is often
lonely behind the high walls of her house.


A world away from Abike’s mansion, in the city’s slums, lives a
seventeen-year-old hawker struggling to make sense of the world. His
family lost everything after his father’s death and now he runs after
cars on the roadside selling ice cream to support his mother and sister.

When Abike buys ice cream from the hawker one day, they strike up
an unlikely and tentative romance, defying the prejudices of Nigerian
society. But as they grow closer, revelations from the past threaten
their relationship and both Abike and the hawker must decide where their
loyalties lie.




  

CHIBUNDU ONUZO was born in Nigeria in 1991 and is the youngest
of four children. She is currently studying History at Kings College,
London. When not writing, Chibundu can be found playing the piano or
singing.



Sterile Sky



 



  



As the gifted young Murtala comes of age in Kano, violent riots and
his family’s own woes threaten to erase all he holds dear. Stalked by
monsters real and imagined, desperate to preserve a sense of self and
the future, Murtala hunts for answers in the wreckage of the city – and
gives us a unique insight into modern life in northern Nigeria.





 

E. E. SULE is the pen-name of Dr. Sule E. Egya who is an
associate professor in Department of English, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida
University, Lapai, Nigeria. Besides published academic work and essays,
Dr.Egya is the author of the short story collections Impotent Heavens and Dream and Shame, and the poetry volumes Naked Sun, Knifing Tongues and What the Sea Told Me. His poems, short stories, and critical work have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies and literary magazines. Sterile Sky is his first novel.







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Chinelo Okparanta and three other Nigerians Shortlisted for 2013 Caine Prize

Chinelo Okparanta, the author of the highly rated Happiness Like Water and three other Nigerian writers have made four of the five writers shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African fiction.

Chinelo's entry "America" from Granta, Issue 118 (London, 2012) is highly favoured to win the coveted Caine Prize.



The other Nigerians on the shortlist are Elnathan John for "Bayan Layi" from Per Contra, Issue 25 (USA, 2012), Tope Folarin for "Miracle" from Transition, Issue 109 (Bloomington, 2012) and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim for "The Whispering Trees" from "The Whispering Trees", published by Parrésia Publishers (Lagos, 2012).



The fifth writer is Pede Hollist from Sierra Leone for "Foreign Aid" from Journal of Progressive Human Services, Vol. 23.3 (Philadelphia, 2012).



The Chair of judges, art historian and broadcaster, Gus Casely-Hayford said:

“The shortlist was selected from 96 entries from 16 African countries. They are all outstanding African stories that were drawn from an extraordinary body of high quality
submissions.”

Gus described the shortlist saying, “The five contrasting titles interrogate aspects of things that we might feel we know of Africa – violence, religion, corruption, family, community – but these are subjects that are deconstructed and beautifully
remade. These are challenging, arresting, provocative stories of a continent and its
descendants captured at a time of burgeoning change.”



Alongside Gus on the panel of judges this year are award-winning Nigerian-born artist, Sokari Douglas Camp; author, columnist and Lord Northcliffe Emeritus Professor at UCL, John Sutherland; Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, Nathan Hensley and the winner of the Caine Prize in its inaugural year, Leila Aboulela.



Once again, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity of taking up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. The award will cover all travel and living expenses. The winner will also be invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September 2013. Last year the Caine Prize was won by Nigerian
writer Rotimi Babatunde. He has subsequently co- authored a play "Feast" for the Young Vic and the Royal Court Theatres in London.



The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday the 8th of July.



The first Nigerian to win the Caine Prize is the popular multiple awards winning novelist Helon Habila in 2001. Previous shortlisted Nigerian writers include the famous Nigerian authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in 2002; Chika Unigwe in 2004, was also shortlisted in 2006 for the Dutch equivalent of the Orange Prize for her novel translated into Dutch, "de fenicks". She won the 2003 BBC Short Story Competition for her story "Borrowed Smile", a Commonwealth Short Story Award for "Weathered Smiles" and a Flemish literary prize for "De Smaak van Sneeuw". Her second novel, On Black Sisters’ Street, first published in Dutch, was published in Chika’s own English version by Jonathan Cape in 2009 and Random House in 2011 won the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature endowed by the Nigeria LNG Limited.. Her new novel is Night Dancer published in June 2012 by Jonathan Cape; Ike Okonta in 2005; Sefi Atta in 2006, is famous for her Everything Good Will Come and Swallow and the short story collection News From Home. Winner of the PEN International 2004/5 David T.K. Wong Prize, she also won the first Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2006 for Everything Good Will Come, and the final NOMA Award for Publishing in Africa in 2009 for Lawless and other stories, now published as "News From Home". Her publishers include Interlink Books in the USA, AAA Press in Nigeria and Jacana Media in South Africa; Uwem Akpan in 2007 and his book Say You're One of Them (Oprah's Book Club) published by Little Brown won the Best First Book award in the Africa region of the Commonwealth Literature Prize and was critically acclaimed by Oprah Winfrey on Oprah’s Book Club in 2009 prompting it to reach the top of the New York Times bestseller list; Ada Udechukwu in 2007 and Uzor Maxim Uzoatu in 2008.



The previous winners include the following.

• 2011: Noviolet Bulawayo
• 2010: Olufemi Terry
• 2009: E C Osondu
• 2008: Henrietta Rose-Innes
• 2007: Monica Arac de Nyeko
• 2006: Mary Watson
• 2005: SA Afolabi
• 2004: Brian Chikwava
• 2003: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
• 2002: Binyavanga Wainaina
• 2001: Helon Habila
• 2000: Leila Aboulela

Chinelo Okparanta was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She received her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University and her MFA from Iowa Writers' Workshop. She teaches at the University of Iowa.





 



 Her novel "Happiness Like Water" made the exclusive list of Best Books Of 2013?: Our Picks For The Year's Biggest Reads by the highly esteemed Huffington Post.
See the report on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/20/best-books-2013-our-picks_n_2344874.html?ref=topbar#slide=1910286 and also the latest New Voice in a series on GRANTA.
Read her interview on http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Interview-Chinelo-Okparanta





"Chinelo Okparanta’s debut collection is astonishing. Her narrators render their stories with such strength and intimacy, such lucidity and composure, that in each and every case the truths of their lives detonate deep inside the reader’s heart, with the power and force of revelation."

 —Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers.



 "Okparanta's prose is tender, beautiful and evocative. These powerful stories of contemporary Nigeria are told with compassion and a certain sense of humour. What a remarkable new talent."

—Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters Street, winner of the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature sponsored by the Nigeria LNG Limited.



"Intricate, graceful prose propels Okparanta’s profoundly moving and illuminating book. I devoured these stories and immediately wanted more. This is an arrival."

 —NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names.



"A haunting and startlingly original collection of short stories about the lives of Nigerians both at home and in America. Okparanta’s characters are forced to make difficult, often impossible choices—a university student decides to go to work as an escort to pay for her mother’s medical bills, a high school teacher is asked to come home to care for her dying, abusive father—and yet they manage to prevail through quiet and sometimes surprising acts of defiance. Okparanta’s prose is elegant and precise, fueled by a strong undercurrent of rage that surfaces at unexpected moments. Happiness, Like Water is a deeply affecting literary debut, the work of a sure and gifted new writer."
—Julie Otsuka, author of The Buddha in the Attic



 "Without bluster, Chinelo Okparanta writes stories that are brave and devastating."



 —Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.



 



See more by Nigerian Writers  and click on any of the book covers to order for the bestselling Nigerian novels and short stories collections.



 















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LIGHT ON A DARK SECRET: Inter-racial Love Drama in Apartheid-Era South Africa

Insightful, Revealing and Shocking!

A glimpse of what it was truly like to live and love under the repressive regime of Apartheid.

5 Mar 2013 20:58 Africa/Lagos

New Book by Pulitzer Centre Award-Winning Essayist

LONDON, March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Abela Publishing has pleasure in announcing the publication of LIGHT ON A DARK SECRET by Glynnis Hayward a Pulitzer Centre award-winning essayist. This is a book about inter-racial relationships and their consequences in apartheid-era South Africa. The Foreword has been written by Ken Andrew, former South African Opposition M.P. and human rights advocate.

WHAT'S BEEN SAID ABOUT THE BOOK

Insightful, revealing, shocking! A glimpse of what it was truly like to live and love under the repressive regime of Apartheid.

Light on a Dark Secret is a vivid reminder of apartheid's injustice and its far-reaching effects.

The title is very appropriate. "Light on a Dark Secret" made me think about my own values.

I really loved this book! It was very well written and kept me engrossed, I didn't want to put it down. I particularly liked how the story was told from the perspective of the different characters. Brought me to tears in a few places.

Read it!

ABOUT THE BOOK

In 1982, Fran Walker was born in California and given up for adoption. Twenty years later, she is on a quest to find her biological parents and solve questions that have plagued her since childhood.

1980 was a difficult time in apartheid-era South Africa for those who opposed government policies; it was extremely dangerous to act outside the law. As a bi-racial couple in a country governed by strict laws of racial segregation, Valerie and Johan's love affair was clandestine. The consequence of their forbidden love, if discovered, would be immediate incarceration. A child from such a union was unthinkable. Discovering she is pregnant, Valerie is faced with imminent exposure. Unable to communicate with Johan, who is being closely monitored by the police, she makes decisions that will have far-reaching consequences. Her actions, as well as those of her mother, Sharon Spencer, and Grace Walker - Fran's adoptive mother, raise the question: More than biology,what does it take to be a mother?

Fran despairs when, amidst prejudice and recrimination, her search discovers a family alienated and broken. But the journey to South Africa is a coming of age for her when she falls in love with a fellow student. She gains insights which help her understand and forgive the circumstances that surrounded her birth.

Four women are the storytellers and each narrates her perspective of events that began in 1980, when two students fell in love in South Africa. In addition to Fran, the women are her birth mother, biological grandmother, and adoptive mother.

TITLE: Light On A Dark Secret
ISBN: 978-1-9009302-10-5
AUTHOR: Glynnis Hayward
PAGES: 346
FORMAT: Paperback & Kindle eBook
PUBLISHED: 2013
WEBSITE: http://www.abelapublishing.com/GlynnisHayward.html

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A South African born novelist and essayist, Glynnis Hayward now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home. However her work shows that Africa still features high in her affections and interest. "Light on a Dark Secret" is her third novel and is available both on Kindle and in paperback.

In addition to her first two novels, she has had many magazine articles published online. In 2008 she won an award from the PULITZER CENTER on Crisis Reporting for her essay that discussed how stigma and discrimination perpetuate the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The award recognized her contribution to help increase awareness of under reported international news.

In 2013, she was invited to become a member of South African PEN, a branch of PEN International. PEN International operates on all six continents and is the representative body for literature at UNESCO and the United Nations.

Glynnis is currently working on her next book, also set in her native South Africa.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

To contact the publisher, email John Halsted at books@abelapublishing.com Books for the USA, Canada and Mexico are printed on mainland USA. Books for the UK, Ireland and Europe are printed and distributed from the UK. Books for Australia, New Zealand and nations in the South Pacific are printed in Australia. All books are printed using paper which promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests thereby reducing our carbon Footprint. See http://www1.lightningsource.com/chainofcustody/

CONTACT: +44(0)7951952062




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The Holocaust Novel of 14-Year-Old Author Christopher Huh

25 Feb 2013 14:30 Africa/Lagos

14-Year-Old Author Christopher Huh Debuts Keeping My Hope, A Historical Fiction Graphic Novel About the Holocaust

GERMANTOWN, Md., Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Christopher Huh, an 8th grade middle school student, has just published a new hand-drawn historical fiction graphic novel about the Holocaust, Keeping My Hope. To write Keeping My Hope, Christopher spent over 1,000 hours conducting research on WWII and the Holocaust. It took him about a year and a half to complete the book.

The storyline circles around the life of Ari. Ari is a teenager whose entire life is turned upside down by the horrors of the Holocaust. He and his family are torn apart and moved to Auschwitz, where the reader gains an inside look at what prisoners in the concentration camps suffered through. However, even with these atrocities, the power of friendship shines through and gives Ari hope to keep surviving through the darkest blizzards of terror. Informative yet touching, Keeping My Hope spreads the message of how powerfully racism and prejudice can affect those around us.



Christopher says, "I started out writing Keeping My Hope just for myself. I wanted to organize and retain the knowledge that I gained from my research by creating an illustrated story. By creating these characters and giving them life, I felt like I was participating in history. Learning about WWII and the Holocaust in this way was not only fun for me but also helped me to remember what I'd learned. As the pages accumulated, I began to show my drawings to people around me and after much support, I decided to turn my work into a published book. I hope to share the valuable lessons I have learned through my book."

His teacher Ms. Schiller says, "This is one-of-a-kind book. Christopher has captured history in a new way, reaching out to the younger generation. Readers of all ages will be touched by the story."

Informative yet touching, Keeping My Hope provides another opportunity for people of all ages to learn about the Holocaust and its impact on countless people.

Keeping My Hope is available at
www.amazon.com/author/christopherhuh
Title: Keeping My Hope
Author: Christopher Huh
Published date: February 18, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-1479348831

About Christopher Huh:
Christopher Huh has enjoyed drawing and creating stories since he was very young. Christopher has never taken an art or creative writing class and takes pride in his unique drawing style and being a self-taught author. Keeping My Hope is Christopher's first book. Besides drawing and writing, he enjoys watching movies, listening to music, playing the viola and the piano, and playing tennis. Christopher is a second generation Korean-American born and raised in the US. For more on the author, please visit his website at www.keepingmyhope.com.

This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE Chris Huh

CONTACT: Christopher Huh, +1-301-814-6372, ChristopherHuh [at] gmail.com

Web Site: http://www.keepingmyhope.com




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Five Books Advance to the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize Shortlist

19 Feb 2013 15:00 Africa/Lagos

Five Books Advance to the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize Shortlist

TORONTO and WASHINGTON, February 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Patricia Rubin, President of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board, today announced the 2013 prize shortlist:

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum (Washington, DC and Poland)
The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics by Paul Bracken (Connecticut, USA)
Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland (New York City, USA)
Ghosts of Empire: Britain 's Legacies in the Modern World by Kwasi Kwarteng (London, England)
From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia by Pankaj Mishra (London, England)

"These five books offer fresh perspectives from the past that bring deeper understanding of current global issues, and compelling perspectives on the future that speak of things to come. The wisdom of this small crowd is worth the world's attention," said Jury Chair William Thorsell.

The 2013 prize jurors are: Jury Chair William Thorsell (Toronto, Canada), Daniel W. Drezner (Medford, USA), Gaynor Lilian Johnson, Ph. D. (Manchester, UK), Walter Russell Mead (Annandale-on-Hudson, USA), and Margaret Wente (Toronto, Canada).

About the Lionel Gelber Prize: Presented annually by The Lionel Gelber Foundation, in partnership with Foreign Policy Magazine and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, the Lionel Gelber Prize is a literary award for the world's best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues.

For further information:

Media Contact: June Dickenson: junedickenson@cogeco.ca / +1-905-689-0388
Prize website: http://www.utoronto.ca/munk/gelber/
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Invisible Giants: Changing the World One Step at a Time

6 Feb 2013 09:00 Africa/Lagos

Invisible Giants: Changing the World One Step at a Time, a Book by Lindsay Levin, is Out on 5th March

LONDON, February 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

"An extraordinary, warts-and-all account designed to jump leaders into 21st century realities." John Elkington, Executive Chairman, Volans Ventures; Co-founder of Environmental Data Services (ENDS) and SustainAbility

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130206/594060-a )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130206/594060-b )

Invisible Giants is a book about leadership, choices in life and the potential in everyone to make a difference. Author Lindsay Levin, who founded the social enterprise Leaders' Quest in 2001, tells the stories of some of the people she has met through her work, and their impact on the world.

Levin takes readers on a journey from Canary Wharf to the streets of Mumbai, and from a high-security prison in Johannesburg to Chengdu, where thousands of new tower blocks are transforming the city. We meet individuals who are overcoming obstacles, and often their own frailties, to change the lives of those around them.

The invisible giants of Levin's story are grassroots leaders who, despite a lack of education and resources, are re-energising their communities, and business executives who strive to integrate purpose alongside profit, in the face of institutional resistance. They are female activists in slums campaigning to end the exclusion of girls from school, and environmentalists tackling the effects of industrialisation on the world's ecosystem. They are also ordinary Israelis and Palestinians committed to peaceful coexistence who are delivering a courageous and sometimes unpopular message to their own people.

"In my experience, people have infinite potential to grow and to create. I have written this book to try and share some of this optimism," says Levin.

After 15 years as a successful entrepreneur, Levin founded the social enterprise Leaders' Quest in 2001, to bring together people from all disciplines and sectors who want to use their unique influence to create positive change in the world. Her work has brought her into contact with an extraordinary range of leaders from across the world - some highly visible, and some not.

"Our work at Leaders' Quest is about bringing people together - from CEOs to grassroots activists - to learn from the unfamiliar and recognise the capacity they have to improve the world around them. The lives of these invisible giants have struck a chord with me. Not because they are inherently more virtuous than high profile leaders, but because their stories are rarely told and because they have a vital role to play in creating a brighter future."

"The book is also the story of my own quest to ask: "what really matters?" and to find out where the answers can take me."

Invisible Giants is published by Vala and will be available to buy online, at high street bookshops, or directly from the publishers at http://www.valapublishers.coop/invisiblegiants , from March 2013. It costs £16.99, and all the author's royalties go to the Leaders' Quest Foundation, a registered charity.

A launch event will be held on Tuesday 5th March at London's Paramount, on the 31st floor of Centre Point, 101-103 New Oxford Street (right next to Tottenham Court Road tube station), from 6.30pm until 8.30pm. It will be a stimulating gathering of corporate and community leaders, including some of the invisible giants who feature in the book. Lindsay will be speaking about the book and her work and taking part in a short Q&A.

The event is free but places are strictly limited. To reserve a place, please contact Richard.roberts@leadersquest.org.

What readers are saying

"Generous, deeply personal and beautifully written." Tom Glocer, former CEO, Thomson Reuters

"An important and enjoyable read for business leaders who want to better understand the complex relationships between people, culture, attitudes and opportunities that shape our world. Invisible Giants challenges us to think differently about business and the role of leaders. Reading it is, in itself, an inspiring journey, with wonderful stories of exceptional people beating the odds to accomplish extraordinary things." Bob Bechek, Worldwide Managing Director, Bain & Company

"It's not about privileged do-gooders who clamour for media attention, but "karmayogis": people who bring about change in quiet and purposeful ways. Truly inspiring, with powerful lessons for everyone." Anu Aga, Chairperson, Teach For India ; Director, Thermax Limited

About the author

After 15 years as a successful entrepreneur, Lindsay Levin founded Leaders' Quest in 2001, to connect leaders from all disciplines and sectors, and explore solutions to global issues.

A strong NGO advocate, her work ranges from searching for new initiatives that address poverty and environmental sustainability, to helping businesses redefine values and shift culture.

From 2008 to 2012 she was Chair of the International Steering Committee of OneVoice, a conflict resolution movement working to strengthen civil society in Israel and Palestine, and she regularly facilitates workshops and dialogues in the region.

About Leaders' Quest

Leaders' Quest works with people from all walks of life - from CEOs of multinational companies, to grassroots organisers - who use their unique influence to create positive change in the world. It designs experiential learning journeys which enable them to ask tough questions about business, society and their own leadership, and look for answers together. It runs programmes in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

Find out more at: http://www.leadersquest.org

About the publisher

The Vala Publishing Co-operative is an adventure in community supported publishing. They publish high quality books that explore and celebrate the human spirit with brave and authentic ways of thinking and being.

Vala is co-owned and democratically managed by its members.

Find out more at: http://www.valapublishers.coop

Media contact

For more information, to order a review copy of Invisible Giants, or to schedule an interview with Lindsay Levin, please contact either Richard.roberts@leadersquest.org or melanie.george@leadersquest.org, or call +44(0)208-948-5208.




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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.
As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—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.
Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.

“An incredibly readable and rich tapestry of Nigerian and American life, and the ways a handful of vivid characters—so vivid they feel like family—try to live in both worlds simultaneously. As she did so masterfully with Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie paints on a grand canvas, boldly and confidently, equally adept at conveying the complicated political backdrop of Lagos as she is in bringing us into the day-to-day lives of her many new Americans—a single mom, a student, a hairdresser. This is a very funny, very warm and moving intergenerational epic that confirms Adichie’s virtuosity, boundless empathy and searing social acuity.”
< b> —Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King.

“Adichie’s great gift is that she has always brought us into the territory of the previously unexplored. She writes about that which others have kept silent. Americanah is no exception. This is not just a story that unfolds across three different continents, it is also a keenly observed examination of race, identity and belonging in the global landscapes of Africans and Americans. If Joyce had silence, exile and cunning for his defense, Adichie has flair, loss and longing. And Adichie is brave enough to allow the story to unfold with a distinct straightforward simplicity that never loses its edgy intellect.”

—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin.











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