Americanah

Name: Americanah
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 2013

A Nigerian woman arrives in America and learns, for the first time, that she is "Black." Adichie's 2013 novel maps the untranslatable gap between an African and an African-American identity with surgical precision. Its blog chapters changed how literary fiction can use social media as voice. The most important novel about race written in the 21st century so far.

The case against

on the length
“I couldn’t bring myself to read several hundred more pages of the same”
one star · a book blog
on Blaine’s character
“Blaine, the reserved, overly proper black academic, seem sketchy, almost schematic.”
Carlo Wolff · Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2013
on the job search
“from surviving fraternity parties to finding employment, Adichie’s storytelling is surprisingly flat”
Rosecrans Baldwin · NPR, 2013
on the last 200 pages
“does not, I’m afraid, justifies this book’s interminable last 200 pages.”
a Substack review