Author From Africa - Americanah

Wikipedia. Believed to be fair use.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was all I heard about during the lead-in to summer, so I knew I had to read it during my time off from work.  Ifemelu grows up in Nigeria, but does a lot of growing up when she moves to the United States, as well.  She goes there to study when dictatorship and unrest in her home country make it impossible for her to get the education that she deserves.

This book meanders forward and backward.  It is in a backwards jump that we meet Obinze, the boy with whom Ifemelu falls desperately and truly in love.  Slowly, painfully slowly, Ifemelu (in the U.S.) and Obinze (in Negeria) find ways to be successful apart.  It is only when Ifemelu decides, despite her comfortable life, to return to Nigeria, that they begin to put words to the unrest that they feel - that success is not the same as happiness.  Moving forward, they must reconcile their past and determine whether their future is as inevitably intertwined as it seemed so many years before.

I enjoyed this book for a myriad of reasons, and even typing this now I want to read it again  I appreciated the frank and interested discussion of race in America from the point of view of a black outsider.  It is hard to appreciate how different, yet interconnected, the conversation around race in the U.S. is compared to the rest of the world.  Ifemelu explores the brother- and sisterhood of blackness while also considering the difference of experience being African and being African American.

The relationship between Ifemelu and Obinze - the deep love, the separation, the struggles, the questionable decisions and the question marks - as a stand-in for the main character's relationship with Nigeria.  The themes of not belonging in either place, of feeling misunderstood in but drawn to aspects of both, are flawlessly expressed in this story.

The writing managed the perfect balance of wryness, toeing the line of painful and humorous where my favorite authors live.  I picked up Half of a Yellow Sun as my next read based off the strength of this one.  Definitely one of my favorite reads from the summer!