New York Times Lists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Book Americanah As One Of 15 Remarkable Books By Women Shaping Fiction In The 21st Century

According to New York Times, ‘For Women’s History Month, The Times’s staff book critics — Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and myself, Parul Sehgal — sat down together to think about these writers who are opening new realms to us, whose books suggest and embody unexplored possibilities in form, feeling and knowledge.’ and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‘s Americanah unsurprisingly made the list.

Describing how impactful the novel is, they wrote;

If you were paying attention, you might have seen this book coming. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s first novel, “Purple Hibiscus,” was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her second, “Half of a Yellow Sun,” won the Orange Prize. In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. But “Americanah” more than paid off on this writer’s promise. It’s a resonant and fiercely intellectual novel about a Nigerian woman named Ifemelu who leaves Africa for America and suffers here before starting a blog called “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black” and winning a fellowship at Princeton. Adichie works both high and low; she’s as adept at dissecting internet and hair salon culture as she is at parsing the overlapping and ever-changing meanings of class and race in the United States. “Americanah” brings news, on many fronts, about how a new generation of immigrants is making its way in the world. It has lessons for every human about how to live. — Dwight Garner