Americanah by Chimamanda N. Adichie

Genre: fiction, 490 pages

 

 The book follows the life of Ifemelu, who is an only child to somewhat lower class but educated parents. Her father works in the ministry and constantly sounds off his knowledge with big words in his analysis of the declining state of the country's politics. He is a proud man whose firm belief against corruption results in him getting sacked from his job for refusing to call his new boss "Mummy".
His wife is a religious woman who wants the best for her family however her good intentions sometimes lead her in questionable directions as is seen when she comes home one day when Ifemelu is still a young girl, sober and trance-like, proceeds to chop off her long and beautiful hair and declares she has found God and they are now members of a church where they do not chemically process their hair or wear jewelry.

Surviving America and Racism
Ifemelu gets into university and during one of the many union strikes, she applies to universities in America and is thrilled when she gets offers and a partial scholarship. Getting a visa was easy and off she goes to live with her aunt, Uju, who had relocated years ago after her married military lover dies in a plane crash. On getting to Brooklyn, she is disillusioned. by what she sees; overwhelming heat, dirty streets and the fact that everything wasn't shiny, bright and glossy as she had seen in Bill Cosby's show.

Amidst finding a way to survive with no job and little or no money, she has to cope with the strains of university life and racism which she had never had to deal with in Nigeria. Obinze gradually gets pushed to the back of her mind as she struggles to keep afloat in a foreign land.
Enter Curt, a white boy from a wealthy home who introduces her to a bourgeois lifestyle. But in the first class trips abroad, expensive clothes, overall contentment of a new comfortable life, there remains a yearn for the love she's left behind in Nigeria.

A Love Story
Ultimately a love story of two people who fall in love and are separated. 13years later, Obinze who is now a wealthy man and has since moved to Lagos, is married to beautiful Kosi and has a child. Ifemelu, finds she is dissatisfied with her life and despite her success has decided to return home.
Will they reunite and have a life together as they always planned or has the turns of life wedged them apart forever?

 
Although the book deals with a few of Nigeria's heavy issues like an unstable educational system and corruption, its prose, writing style and tone are cleverly done lightly as to not overwhelm the plot.

Americanah is Adichie's third novel and with it she reminds us she is a truly gifted writer.

News From Home by Sefi Atta

Genre: Fiction; Interlink books: 320 pages.

Excerpt

 

"A Temporary Position"

One afternoon like so, I thought sod it, I will eat my roast beef on rye sandwich at my workstation for a change. Cath was off sick. She'd coughed so hard the day before her eyes filled with tears and her face turned red. "I'm coming down with something," she'd kept whispering into her handkerchief. To me, it sounded like a smoker's cough.
I smuggled my sandwich bag into my satchel and positioned my satchel on the carpet between my legs where I could easily reach for it. Somehow, my sandwich, now illicit, was much tastier. Perhaps that was the secret to Lagos life after all: the general unlawfulness of the place. I'd barely taken two nibbles from the corner of my rye bread when Steve McQueen came along. I sat up and buzzed him through the door. He smiled and really, for an Irish lad, his teeth were almost African.
"Have you seen Penny?" he asked
She was clip-clopping in the direction of the loos when last I saw her. Steve waited as I chewed under my palm. I'd lowered my sandwich as soon as I saw him. Now, I was diving and feeling around for my satchel so I could slip the sandwich back inside, at the same time rubbing my lips in case there was a trace of horseradish.
Penelope reappeared. Her natural expression was a stare because she wore contact lenses. I imagined her taking a crap, as you're supposed to in interview situations to calm your nerves.
"Ready?" she asked him.
"I was just asking about you," he said.
He opened the door for her and she flung her hair over each shoulder, as if to declare, "He's my fiance. I'm his fiance."

Review

 

News From Home is a collection of stories told by various Nigerian voices. Told with so much heart and originality, the various stories are vividly imaginative and powerfully moving.

"Lawless" is a story told by a young orphan, a university undergraduate who finds his life changed for ever during a military rule that closes down his university. He takes in four of his close friends from school who share a passion for acting and script writing with him. In the wake of frequent electricity failures, they perform plays for a gathering of neighbors in the empty swimming pool of his late father's house to applause from the crowd. This soon sizzles out to boos and jeers when a lack of living amenities, tiredness and poor feeding soon result in their poor renditions of plays.
Eventually, they quit play acting and give up going back to school when their university reopens, for they had gotten a taste of a different kind of acting; as armed robbers and decided that this was indeed their true calling as a group.

This is a book I highly recommend to lovers of African literature.

A Bit Of Difference by Sefi Atta

 Genre: Fiction, Interlink Books; 224 pages.

 EXCERPT

Deola finds it odd that Nigerians go to funerals as if they are social occasions that anyone can gate-crash - they just show up, look sad and leave. She has been to three funerals, all three in Nigeria. The first was her grandfather's. Her mother had to pin her head tie in place. She was that young. The second was for a governor of her secondary school, Queen's College. Her headmistress asked for class representatives and she put her hand up. The funeral was at Ikoyi Cemetery and she attended it in her Sunday uniform and beret. It was terribly hot and people arrived by the busload. The third was her father's funeral at Victoria Court Cemetery and his was just as crowded. Her relatives forced her to dance at the reception following his funeral, but she didn't think that at sixty-seven, he was old enough for her to celebrate his life.

The story is narrated by a Nigerian expatriate lady (Deola) living in London whose job sends her on a trip to Nigeria and gives her a chance to be home for her father's 5-year memorial. She is all too aware of the impending nosiness and questions from  relatives about her unmarried status,being that she is in her late thirties and getting past the 'due' age for marriage. Upon her arrival, she is instantly faced with the vivid difference between the rowdy and complex life in Nigeria and civil, orderly life in London.

Amidst preparations for the memorial, in catching up with her married siblings she senses their despair and unhappiness with their marriages.

There is a sort of happy ending with Deola when her one night stand with rich, charismatic, hotel owner, Wale, leads to a pregnancy and an unexpected romance with the preparations for a marriage.

The book is centered on life amongst the middle class of Nigeria and reveals a few of its hidden, family dynamics. The author's sharp, witty writing and the various rich and sometimes neurotic psychologies and personalities in the novel leaves one turning the pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend this book.

I Do Not Come To You By Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Genre: Fiction - paperback. 339 pages; 2011. 

In an earlier post 2013 Reads, I put up a few books I would like to read this year. A couple of them are by a Nigerian author because I want to get to know more indigenous authors and their works.

While having lunch at Terra Kulture sometime ago with the hubs, we went over to the mini bookshop there and, lo and behold, they had mostly Nigerian authors. Yay !!
We ended up buying one by Nwaubani and a couple others by Sefi Atta (please find their review after this post).

I Do Not Come To You By Chance; A riveting story

A young man (Kingsley Ibe) has just graduated from university and has big dreams for himself to get a great job, rescue his family from poverty and get married to his university sweetheart. However, the realities of life and the very present difficulties of a corrupt nation, soon divests him of his lofty dreams. His girlfriend leaves him for a rich, older uneducated man at the same time his father collapses and his poor mother can not raise the finance to get him the treatment he needs. Kingsley finds himself going more and more to his uncle who finally recruits him into his line of internet fraud work, much to his mother's dismay.

The main characters in this book are very strong and original. However, the character I found most outstanding is Big Daddy; Kingsley's illiterate but extremely wealthy uncle. Big Daddy is a hilarious, rags-to-riches persona who eventually becomes a Gubernatorial aspirant. He provides a lot of comic relief throughout the story via his street smarts, wit, uncouth nature and use of biblical passages to assuage his indiscretions. 

This is one book I thoroughly enjoyed, from the impressive story telling by the author to the characterization, which is very much in keeping with Nigeria's socio-cultural dynamics. I'm quite sure every Nigerian who reads this book will find that there is one of each character in their home.