by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Hi reader/friend! I don’t think this changes the perspective I had at all, but full transparency: I wrote this blog post at the beginning of December. I have a few drafts that I haven’t published yet, and this is one of them! More of those will be published soon, as well as new/current posts! Enjoy 🙂

I just finished reading the novel “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and wow is it a masterpiece. I had an idea it was going to be impactful given all of the accolades the book has received since it was published in 2013. I knew of Adichie from her brilliant TED talk about feminism. Adichie manages to weave together a love story with brilliant commentary on blackness. As a New York reviewer put it, “Adichie is to blackness what Philip Roth was to Jewishness: its most obsessive taxonomist, it’s staunchest defender, and its greatest critic.”

As with all of my blog posts about books, this isn’t a review, and I’m not going to give anything away, because I want to encourage YOU to read the book. But I do want to give a brief synopsis. Americanah follows two main protagonists, Ifemelu and Obinze, and spans a couple decades of their lives. They went to school together in Nigeria and assumed a romantic relationship in high school. Obinze dreams of going to America, but in a sick twist of fate it is Ifemelu who is able to get a visa and move to America, while Obinze stayed and later lived undocumented in London. Readers learn of the reality of living in America and the U.K.  as an immigrant, especially as a non-American black person. Ifemelu starts a blog and shares her experiences connected to race. Adichie cleverly includes a lot of commentary on race, as Ifemelu’s blog posts are interwoven into the story line.

I dog-earred so many pages with quotes from the book that I found impactful or important. I won’t share all of them considering it’s a 600 page novel, but I am going to share quite a few. I can’t think of a better way to learn about someone else’s life experience than by reading their own words, listening, and immersing yourself in their story:

“She said…that it was absurd how women’s magazines forced images of small-boned, small-breasted white woman on the rest of the multi-boned, multi-ethnic world of women to emulate” – pg. 219

“…all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness.”- pg. 341

“I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America.”- pg. 359

“Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.”- pg. 378

“In America, racism exists but racists are gone.” (DRIPPING with sarcasm of course)- pg. 390

“Blacks actually don’t WANT it to be about race. So when they say something is about race, it’s maybe because it actually is?”- pg. 404 

“…of course we’re all prejudiced, but racism is about the power of the group and in America it’s white folks who have that power.”- pg. 405

“It is the final infantilization and informalization of America! It portends the end of the American empire, and they are killing themselves from within!”- pg. 489

I hope you go read this book!! If you’ve read it, what were your thoughts? Let me know!