AFA 318: Women Writers of the African World

Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home. Because of a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father's authority. When they return home, family tensions escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.

Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and her new lover. Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, who refuses to belong to anyone. During the Biafra conflict, the three must run for their lives, and their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Ifemelu departs for America to study and, while there, she encounters something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in. Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in Nigeria, while Ifemelu is a successful blogger about race in America. When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion, they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.

Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie's signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.