Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie - An Old-Fashioned Love Story

I have not read Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie, but I'm really looking forward to it, and I had been intruiged since I read the blurb and an excerpt, and knew the main story was between two people in love. There had also been a love story in Half a Yellow Sun, but it was overshadowed by the Biafran war theme. Here, the other issues in the book are more subsidiary. In an interview about Americanah, Chimamanda answered the following questions,

...what is Americanah about?

It is about love. I wanted to write an unapologetically old-fashioned love story. But it is also about race and how we reinvent ourselves. It is about how, when we leave home, we become another version of ourselves. And it is also about hair…

You write brilliantly about love. What do you think makes a love last?

I wish I knew… if I did, I would market it. Lasting love has to be built on mutual regard and respect. It is about seeing the other person. I am very interested in relationships and, when I watch couples, sometimes I can sense a blindness has set in. They have stopped seeing each other. It is not easy to see another person.

Have you experienced love at first sight?

No, but I would like to.

The interview was by the Observer, and she said other things about the book too. Below is the blurb of the book

AMERICANAH is a fearless novel set in Nigeria, England and America. It boldly takes on issues both big and small: love, race, home, hair, Obama, immigration, and self-invention. In the early 1990s, under Abacha’s government, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. People are leaving the country if they can and Ifemelu leaves for America, where alongside defeats and triumphs, she confronts the inevitable question of race. Obinze, unable to join her in America, goes on to live as an illegal immigrant in London. After several years they have both achieved success -- Ifemelu as a popular blogger about race, and Obinze as a wealthy man in the now democratic Nigeria. When Ifemelu decides to return to Nigeria, she and Obinze must both make the biggest decision of their lives.

Americanah is out now, and will also be available in Nigeria by the end of the month. I'm talking with the publishers, and hopefully we can do a book club discussion on the book next month. I loved Chimamanda's previous two novels, and I'm looking forward to this one.