Americanah Paperback - 2014

Media reviews

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER 2013 – National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
FINALIST 2014 – Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction
FINALIST 2014 – Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction

 “Americanah is most memorable for its fine-tuned, scathing observations about worldly Nigerians and the ways they create new identities out of pretension and aspiration…. Adichie displays much keen critical intelligence about how we can unwittingly betray our truest selves.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times Book Review
 
“Masterful.... An expansive, epic love story set in three countries, Adichie’s fourth book pulls no punches with regard to race, class, and the high-risk, heart-tearing struggle for belonging in a fractured world.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Superb…. A lush, big-hearted love story that also happens to be a piercingly funny social critique.”
—Vogue
 
“‘You can’t write an honest novel about race in this country,’ comments a character towards the end of Americanah. It’s a slyly self-referential joke since, with her ambitious third novel, prize-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sets out to prove otherwise, placing race squarely, unapologetically and entertainingly centre-stage…Written with flair and warmth, this impressively poised novel makes the most of Adichie’s sense of wry detachment as an outsider without losing an affectionate humour for both her native Nigeria and adopted country.”
—Daily Mail 
 
“An incredibly readable and rich tapestry of Nigerian and American life, and the ways a handful of vivid characters—so vivid they feel like family—try to live in both worlds simultaneously. As she did so masterfully with Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie paints on a grand canvas, boldly and confidently, equally adept at conveying the complicated political backdrop of Lagos as she is in bringing us into the day-to-day lives of her many new Americans—a single mom, a student, a hairdresser. This is a very funny, very warm and moving intergenerational epic that confirms Adichie’s virtuosity, boundless empathy and searing social acuity.”
—Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King

“Adichie’s great gift is that she has always brought us into the territory of the previously unexplored. She writes about that which others have kept silent. Americanah is no exception. This is not just a story that unfolds across three different continents, it is also a keenly observed examination of race, identity and belonging in the global landscapes of Africans and Americans. If Joyce had silence, exile and cunning for his defense, Adichie has flair, loss and longing. And Adichie is brave enough to allow the story to unfold with a distinct straightforward simplicity that never loses its edgy intellect.”
—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin
 
“Adichie burst onto the literary scene in 2006 with Half of a Yellow Sun, her searing depiction of the civil war in Nigeria. Her equally compelling and important new novel follows the lives of that country’s postwar generation as they suffer endemic corruption and poverty under a military dictatorship. An unflinching but compassionate observer, Adichie writes a vibrant tale about love, betrayal, and destiny…. [A] touching love story and an illuminating portrait of a country still in political turmoil.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)