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Author | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
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Language | English |
Genre | Fiction |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | May 2013 |
Publication place | Nigeria |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Pages | 608 pp. |
ISBN | 978-0-307-96212-6 |
Americanah is a 2013 novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Her third novel and fourth book, it was published on 14 May 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf. The novel recounts the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who emigrates to the United States to attend a university. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2013.
Ifemelu and Obinze, teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, fall in love. Nigeria at the time is under military dictatorship, and people are seeking to leave the country. Ifemelu moves to the United States to study, where she struggles for the first time with racism and the many varieties of racial distinctions: for the first time, Ifemelu discovers what it means to be a "Black Person". [1] Obinze had hoped to join her in the U.S. but he is denied a visa after 9/11. He goes to London, eventually becoming an undocumented immigrant after his visa expires. [2] [3]
Years later, Obinze returns to Nigeria and becomes a wealthy man as a property developer in the newly democratic country. Ifemelu gains success in the United States, where she becomes known for her blog about race in America, entitled "Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black". [3] When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, the two consider reviving a relationship in light of their diverging experiences and identities during their many years apart.
In her review for San Francisco Chronicle , Catherine Chung wrote, "Americanah is an exhilarating, mind-expanding pleasure of a read. It is a brilliant treatise on race, class and globalization, and also a deep, clear-eyed story about love - and how it can both demand and make possible the struggle to become our most authentic selves". [4] Oprah Daily wrote that the novel is "an expansive, epic love story. . . . Pulls no punches with regard to race, class and the high-risk, heart-tearing struggle for belonging in a fractured world", while NPR wrote "a knockout of a novel about immigration, American dreams, the power of first love, and the shifting meanings of skin colour". The Boston Globe wrote, "a cerebral and utterly transfixing epic...Americanah is superlative at making clear just how isolating it can be to live far away from home". The New York Times Book Review wrote that it is "a novel that holds the discomfiting realities of our times fearlessly before us. . . . A steady-handed dissection of the universal human experience".
In her review for The Washington Post , Emily Raboteau praised the author, writing that "Adichie is uniquely positioned to compare racial hierarchies in the United States to social striving in her native Nigeria. She does so in this new work with a ruthless honesty about the ugly and beautiful sides of both nations". [5] The Dallas Morning News called the novel "a bright, bold book with unforgettable swagger that proves it sometimes takes a newcomer to show Americans to ourselves". The Philadelphia Inquirer acknowledged that "Americanah tackles the U.S. race complex with a directness and brio no U.S. writer of any color would risk", while Vogue and The Seattle Times wrote that "Americanah is that rare thing in contemporary literary fiction: a lush, big-hearted love story that also happens to be a piercingly funny social critique" and "a near-flawless novel", respectively.
Writing for The New York Times , Mike Peed wrote "Americanah examines blackness in America, Nigeria and Britain, but it's also a steady-handed dissection of the universal human experience—a platitude made fresh by the accuracy of Adichie's observations". [3] In a review for The Chicago Tribune , Laura Pearson wrote, "sprawling, ambitious and gorgeously written, 'Americanah' covers race, identity, relationships, community, politics, privilege, language, hair, ethnocentrism, migration, intimacy, estrangement, blogging, books and Barack Obama. It covers three continents, spans decades, leaps gracefully, from chapter to chapter, to different cities and other lives". [6]
Americanah won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. [7] It was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2014. [8] It won the 2013 Heartland Award for Fiction by The Chicago Tribune. [9]
It was rated in 2013 as "one of the Best Books of the Year" by The New York Times , NPR, Chicago Tribune , The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, Entertainment Weekly , and Newsday . The novel was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by New York Times Book Review . [10] In March 2017, Americanah won the "One Book, One New York" program by One City One Book. [11] [12] In 2024, it was ranked #27 in the list of 100 best books of the 21st century by The New York Times. [13]
Americanah spent 78 weeks on NPR's Paperback Best-Seller list. [14] Days after The New York Times named Americanah to its best books of 2013 list, Beyoncé also signaled her admiration of Adichie, sampling Adichie's TED Talk "We should all be feminists" on the song "***Flawless"; sales of Americanah soared and as of December 23, 2013, the book climbed to the number 179 spot on Amazon.com's list of its 10,000 best-selling books. [15]
In 2022, Americanah was banned in the Clay County School District in Florida. [16]
In 2014, it was announced that David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong'o would star in a film adaptation of the novel, [17] to be produced by Brad Pitt and his production company Plan B. [18] In 2018, Nyong'o told The Hollywood Reporter that she was developing a television miniseries based on the book, which she would produce and star in. [19] It was announced on September 13, 2019, that HBO Max would air the miniseries in ten episodes, with actor and playwright Danai Gurira as writer and showrunner. [20] On October 15, 2020, it was reported that the miniseries would not move forward due to scheduling conflicts. [21]