On Americanah

I recently finished Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The book was a Christmas gift from my brother and man, was it good. I had been meaning to read it for awhile. I can't see it being for everyone, but it completely fed my interest in present-day racial relations in America, along with religion and culture in present-day Nigeria, the immigrant experience and even a bit of the class and race in the U.K. Oh and it was also a novel. It seems rare for a book to be so thought-provoking in exploring the American racial dynamic while also being a novel.

I had heard a couple of interviews with Adichie after Americanah came out in 2013 (like most books, I was pretty late to the party. It was on my to-read waitlist for awhile). She's an extraordinarily talented writer and I wondered how much of the main character's experiences as a Nigerian young woman living in the United States reflected Adichie's own similar experiences.

I loved too, Adichie's exploration of the American view of the continent of Africa as one singular country with little urbanization or access to mainstream American media or knowledge of the world. I was quick to believe something similar for awhile, but through understanding the process and effects of globalization and worldwide consumption of the American media industry, and the irony of the American media industry classifying nearly all non-American or European music as "global" or "tribal," I think the United States might be the isolated nation, not an entire continent.

Book cover image obtained at http://chimamanda.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/americanah.png