Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie provides a beautiful and humane entry point into the profound impact of race, nationality, and migration policy both domestically and globally. It takes place in Nigeria, the UK, and the US, and it is everything other reviewers promised:

• From the New York Times:  “Americanah” is witheringly trenchant and hugely empathetic, both worldly and geographically precise, a novel that holds the discomfiting realities of our times fearlessly before us. It never feels false.
• And from the LA Times: These characters are richly drawn… When parts of the plot seem familiar — the perils of emigration, the difficulties of being a foreigner in a new land — Adichie digs in deeply, finding a way to make them fresh.

International educators will enjoy the expression of intercultural journeys, missteps, and learning throughout the book; educators interested in showing their students the complex intersections of race, nationality, and class in today’s America will appreciate Adiche’s strong and sympathetic characters.

A few excerpts will reveal how quickly and concisely Adiche digs deeply with her characters. First, cross-cultural experience:

When Elena asked why Ifemelu had not petted her dog, or scratched his head in the week since she moved in, she said, “I don’t like dogs.” 

“Is that like a cultural thing?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean like I know in China they eat cat meat and dog meat.” 

“My boyfriend back home loves dogs. I just don’t” 

“Oh,” Elena said, and looked at her, brows furrowed, as Jackie and Allison had earlier looked at her when she said she had never gone bowling, as though wondering how she could have turned out a normal human being without ever having gone bowling. She was standing at the periphery of her own life, sharing a fridge and a toilet, a shallow intimacy, with people she did not know at all. People who lived in exclamation points. “Great!” they said often. “That’s great!” People who did not scrub in the shower; their shampoos and conditioners and gels were cluttered in the bathroom, but there was not a single sponge, and this, the absence of a sponge, made them seem unreachably alien to her (p. 129).

And later in the same dialogue, class emerges:

There was something unquestioning about her roommates’ lives, an assumption of certainty that fascinated her, so that they often said, “Let’s go get some,” about whatever it was they needed – more beer, pizza, buffalo wings, liquor – as though this getting was not an act that required money. She was used, at home, to people first asking, “Do you have money?” before they made such plans (p.129). 

Her commentary on race is too thoughtful, nuanced, and integrated throughout the book to briefly excerpt here. It represents the kinds of insights that seem difficult – perhaps impossible – without the insider-outsider-insider status Adichie brings as a Nigerian American who has lived significant parts of her life in both countries. It provokes new and deep thought – and it’s a great read.

If you enjoy the book, check out Adichie’s Ted Talk on The Danger of a Single Story if you haven’t already. I’ve previously blogged about its relevance for working with students to better understand culture and approach intercultural learning.

You can get the book through the link above or here: Americanah