Almost every reader would come into the bookshop that day asking about a certain novel called Americanah by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The captivation that emerged from others was so deeply ingrained in me that Adichie’s name lingered in my mind for another year, echoing in conversations and recommendations long after. Finally, time and space allowed me to read what others were so enthralled with.

Adichie was born in Enugu, one of the states in the South-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, as the fifth of six children in an Igbo family –a Nigerian ethnic group that would be crucial to the development of her entire literary career. She completed her secondary education and began her university studies at the University of Nigeria. However, at the age of nineteen, she left her country to settle in the United States, seeking further education. Afterwards, Adichie became a significant figure in postcolonial feminist and racial literature, won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2007 with her well known novel Half of a yellow sun and continued to write about Western and African influences with themes as religion, immigration, gender and culture.

I briefly recount Adichie´s life because Americanah seems to be a testimony of those years filled with change and cultural shock through Ifemulu´s life. Moreover, all her works seemed touched by her own story. Many do not understand how life-changing it is to leave your country to seek something blindly in an unknown environment. Leaving your space isn’t only about giving up your regional customs; it’s about losing friends and family. It means giving up physical and material comforts, signifies forcing your mind to work twice as hard when everything is in a different language.

Ifemelu, the central protagonist of our novel, experiences all of this. She is a Nigerian teenager from Lagos, a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria, who could be said to fit the stereotype of a “strong-willed woman”, capable of being honest with anyone and defending her voice against those who do not listen. On the other hand, we have Obinze, the second protagonist of Americanah, also a teenager living in Lagos, characterized by an unwavering kindness, a quiet grace and a steady calm that remains unshaken, whether faced with adversity or fortune.

The story of Americanah unfolds with the encounter of these two characters during their high school years, showing a sudden and swift love amidst a Nigeria caught in a military dictatorship. Reaching university, marked by what can be called “teenage problems” –jealousy of other women and confusion of feelings– they are forced to take a tough decision driven by necessity; leave Nigeria as strikes delay their academic progress and disrupt life to continue their studies. Ifemelu migrates to the United States, breaking off her relationship with Obinze and discovering a world of racism, sexism and xenophobia. Meanwhile, after a denied visa and the broken dream of accompanying his girlfriend, Obinze migrates to London illegally and faces his own set of challenges.

As someone who did not have a deep understanding of race and Africanness, this novel managed to teach me, with an incomparable gesture of kindness and easy low-pacing writing, both what it is like to live under a different skin –and the alienation that entails– as well as how to feel ownership and security within myself.

Nothing is more jarring than a woman having to change her hair to be accepted in a job interview, without fully understanding why. Nor is there anything more disheartening than doubting your work, which is also your passion, because of the opinion of a boyfriend who doesn’t truly understand you. Not either is there anything heavier than finding, through writing, a means of liberation and peace, just as there is a profound satisfaction in seeing characters’ growing arc and learning to love them in a book that draws you into its partly fictional world. Yet, beyond these profound themes, Americanah delves into many more intriguing and captivating issues that leads the readers to undercover the layers of an always deeply human reading everyone should ask about.

Enjoyed this? Read more from Redbrick Culture here!

BEDSOC Black History Month Book Review: Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea

BEDSOC Black History Month Book Review: Gathering Blossoms Under Fire – The Journals of Alice Walker

Theatre Review: Bright Places