Come and chat to Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about her new novel, AMERICANAH, on Tues 29 April, 9-10pm

[TillyBookClub]

April’s choice is a powerhouse of a book that informs and entertains in equal measure. AMERICANAH is the third novel from Orange-Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who tackles the enormous subject of race with such vitality, intelligence and general chutzpah that you speed through the pages enchanted. AMERICANAH is first and foremost an epic love story spanning three continents: Nigerian teenagers Ifemelu and Obinze grow up together and fall in love, but are drawn apart when Ifemelu moves to study in the US and Obinze tries his luck in the UK, before returning to be a wealthy Lagos businessman.

Alternating between Ifemelu’s struggles with American ideas of race, and Obinze’s foray into being an illegal immigrant, the novel covers the next thirteen years before they finally meet again (in a 21st century, globalized, democratic Nigeria), and find out if they can regain what was lost. Along the way are many relationships, jobs, mistakes and triumphs, misunderstandings and epiphanies. And hairstyles: as Ifemelu experiments with straightened/Afro/cornrowed hair, her story moves through an identity crisis, into an activist phase and finally an acceptance of her roots, all of which is told with humour and acutely observant detail.

This is a book to make you think deeply, to see a subject in the round in all it's complexity and paradox, to hear things spoken out loud that are so often fudged over. Adichie’s ideas are fresh and bold, her writing always personal and perceptive: she is equally marvellous covering Nigerian politics as she is writing day-to-day dialogue. This is a very funny, very warm, rollicking, authentic, absolutely astonishing book. Don’t miss it – it might easily be your best book of the year.

Chimamanda's TED talk, ‘The Danger of the Single Story’ has been viewed 6.5 million times. You can view it here.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977. Her first novel 'Purple Hibiscus' was published in 2003 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her second novel 'Half of a Yellow Sun' won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her work has been selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards, and in 2010 she appeared on the New Yorker's list of the best 20 writers under 40.

Fourth Estate have 50 free copies to give to Mumsnetters – to claim yours please fill in your details here. We’ll post on the thread when all the copies have gone. If you’re not lucky enough to bag one of the free books, you can always get your paperback or Kindle version here.

We are delighted that Chimamanda will be joining us to discuss Americanah, her writing life and all her previous books on Tuesday 29 April, 9-10pm. So please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month, pop up any advance questions and we will see you all here, Tue 29 April.

Evening everyone

I'm over the moon to welcome Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie here tonight, who wrote her first, Orange Prize shortlisted novel Purple Hibiscus in 2003, went on to win the 2007 Orange Prize with Half of a Yellow Sun, and is currently shortlisted for the (now Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction) prize for her third book, Americanah. All three are astonishing, the kind of books that turn you into a hermit and make you want to stop all the clocks.

Chimamanda, thank you very much indeed once again for taking the time to be here tonight. And congratulations on all your success - and on a succession of wonderful, life-enhancing books. We'll kick off with the advance questions from further up the thread. And then we'll aim to get through as many as possible over the next hour.

I'd also like to ask you the two standard Mumsnet questions we like to ask all Bookclub authors:

Which childhood book most inspired you?

What would be the first piece of advice you would give anyone attempting to write fiction?

Over to you…

Hello! Two questions from me -
Were Ifemelu and Obinze always destined to be together as you wrote?

I am a huge admirer of your work and have always enjoyed your books. This one took a more truthful tone and I found the honesty of the book hugely appealing. Is it a book you've always wanted to write and felt the need to be established as an author to write it?

My village book club are reading this book this month and next Wednesday we'll all be at my house drinking wine and discussing it - fancy a web chat with us then?? ;)

It's nice to be here. Thank you. I'm a bit dense about web chats so I hope I can figure out how this works.

I loved the FAMOUS FIVE series by Enid Blyton. Chinua Achebe’s ARROW OF GOD made me fall in love with storytelling.

I loved all three of your full sized novels (not a bit short story fan so avoided that one) so much, you characters really resonated with me. I was particularly taken with the fall from affluence in HOAYS. The descriptions of the desperation of becoming that poor were beautifully written. How do you research something like that? How do you gain that understanding in order to be able to describe it so well?

And please write more soon! :)

My first piece of advice to anyone attempting to write fiction:
Write as if your family and friends will never get to read it. That way, you are less likely to self-censor.

Hello Chimamanda, I thoroughly enjoyed the book , but Ifemelu came across to me as a very selfish character, and as long as she got what she wanted she didn't care who got hurt in the process.Did you intend to portray Ifemelu this way, and if so why ?

Hello Chimamanda
I am halfway through Americanah and loving reading it. Your descriptions are delicious - bringing all senses together to make the whole feeling of being there. For example the hot Summer's day by Ifemelu's new flat. I could feel the pulsing heat and slight rotting smell. Divinely encapsulated.
Does it take you long to formulate these descriptions or do they pour out of you so well formed?

I really like the character of Ifemelu. She is such a strong person - standing up to the world and taking on new experiences but not angelic - flawed too. The patriarchal Nigerian society you describe somewhat doesn't seem to bring forth the best from women. But it obviously worked for you. Did you grow up with strong women role models?

Hi chimamanda I'm half way through Americanha and really enjoying it and looking forward to hearing from you tonight. I think you got the attitudes so right in London. Have you spent time there?

@sparkysparkysparky

Hi I enjoyed the book but .. At first the characters were almost Jane Austen like in the way they revealed themse through what they said. However it turned into a 19 century Russian novel once it moved to theUS. Every conversation imbued with significance and analysis. That said I loved what the "hair" passages taught me about Ifemelu's experience. Question for Chimamanda : Did Ifemelu love or even like anybody in this novel? I don't think she did

She adored Dike and Obinze’s mother. She loved her parents and aunt. She cared about the men she dated. But I understand that she isn’t what we have come to expect of women characters and even of women in real life. She’s not invested in being ‘likeable’ and ‘pleasant.’ She’s not easily content, she doesn’t settle, she provokes. Her affections are prickly, complicated things.

Hi Chimamanda

It's great that you're here to have a conversation with us.

Do you often have the opportunity to meet your readers at book festivals and so on .. if so facing a room full of people must be very different from the (I imagine) solitary life of a writer. Do you enjoy the experience?

I've just read the first few chapters of Americanah and am completely engrossed. Thank you.

@sweetkat32

I'm about halfway through the book and I have found it such a wonderful learning experience, and really opened my eyes! Thankyou for such a brilliant novel. My question for Chimamanda do you think people will ever be able to accept each other for who we are or will race always come into it? Thankyou again for my copy of the book!

Race is not a problem. Racism is. I don’t think a ‘color-blind’ world will ever exist, whatever that means, but I do think its possible to come to a place where we stop attaching negative ideas to a particular group of people. There are many relationships and friendships between people of different races that prove that we can of course accept each other for who we are, but maybe the problem is that we haven’t figured out how to do it on a larger societal and structural level.
?

Hi Chimamanda, I first came across your work with your TED talk. I use it a lot when teaching about prejudice, preconceptions and discrimination of all kinds. It speaks so simply but powerfully- it never fails to impress and inspire my students, some of whom are living with hugely difficult challenges and some of whom have quite a lot of power to impose their versions of stories on others. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you very much from us all!

@Stanislas

Thank you for the book. I haven't started reading it yet but I'm looking forward to it. I read a profile of you in the Sunday Times. This may be frivolous but you said you loved Boots the Chemist when you came to London. What is so special for you there?

Not frivolous at all! Boots is like no other drugstore in the world. I can’t explain it really. I love to wander around Boots and discover things. It might just be because it is ‘exotic’ to me. It’s not like the pharmacies in Nigeria and not like the drugstores in the US, the two places I am most familiar with. I feel very comfortable and welcome in Boots, which must sound a bit silly. And I think my love of Boots is also connected to my love of London. I think London is such a wonderful city in so many ways.

@Lenniepennie

I'm intrigued by this title bit haven't read your other two books yet . If I wanted to read them all, is there a order you would recommend?

Maybe the order in which they were written? They really are all very different and came from different emotional places in my life.

@Uzma01

My questions to Chimamanda:

Which of her characters does she most identify with, from Americanah or any of her other books?

Also, what does she draw on for inspiration - her own experience, that of people she knows or has spoken to; or something else entirely?

Thank you so much for a copy of the book; have loved reading it - also really enjoyed Chimamanda's other books.

@Uzma01

My questions to Chimamanda:

Which of her characters does she most identify with, from Americanah or any of her other books?

Also, what does she draw on for inspiration - her own experience, that of people she knows or has spoken to; or something else entirely?

Thank you so much for a copy of the book; have loved reading it - also really enjoyed Chimamanda's other books.

Almost all the stories are based on ‘real’ stories, some are my experiences but most are other peoples’– because my life is quite boring and isn’t a great source of material. I lived in the US and Nigeria. I have spent a lot of time in the UK and have family there.
There’s also a lot of fusing of my imagination into these ‘real’ stories – I twist and change and reinvent things

Do you always know how the main story in your books will unfold and ultimately end or do you let the story happen as you write, changing the path of the story as you go?

@Uzma01

My questions to Chimamanda:

Which of her characters does she most identify with, from Americanah or any of her other books?

Also, what does she draw on for inspiration - her own experience, that of people she knows or has spoken to; or something else entirely?

Thank you so much for a copy of the book; have loved reading it - also really enjoyed Chimamanda's other books.

I never quite know which character is most like me. A close friend said I had split myself into two to create Kainene and Olanna in HOAYS. Another close friend said I am Obinze. Another said Ifemelu is ‘you without your warmth.’ I get attached to most of my characters but never really see them as extensions of myself. I do particularly admire some characters more than others. I adored Kainene. And admired Ifemelu. And felt a kinship to Ugwu and Obinze and Aunty Ifeoma in PH

I was looking around at the things you have written and found a short story called "Ceiling" is this the draft version of Americanah? Does it stand apart from Americanah or is that where Ifemelu was born and you had to write more?

@juneau

I enjoyed this book immensely and was fairly sure I would, having previously read 'Half of a Yellow Sun' and loved it.

In both of these books I particularly appreciated the incredible sense of place. I've lived in the USA as a foreigner and a British English speaker and I found myself nodding and laughing at the observations made about the two different versions of the language and the common misunderstandings that arise. Having lived there for six years myself I could tell that Chimamanda has also spent some serious time in the country, otherwise she couldn't have written such a rich, descriptive narrative. The shortening of names, for instance, and the refusal to properly acknowledge a name that is not familiar, was something that I'd noticed too.

I was also very interested by the race angle of the book. As a white British person I blunder through life largely unaware of the experiences of people of colour around me. The essential differences between the heritage of a black American and a black African and how this informs their way of seeing the world were things I had not dwelt upon, so I found this very interesting and informative - thank you for opening my eyes.

Question for Chimamanda: how long do you spend researching and writing each of your books? You're not an author who churns out a book a year, instead you present us with one beautifully formed gem every few years, so are you working on the next book all that time or do you go off and do other things? The richness of your characters suggests that you spend a long time bringing them to life - but maybe it would just take ME a long time and for you it's a much faster process!

Thank you. I love knowing I’m not alone in my bewilderment about American English! What’s funny though is that I am now a terrible English mutt. I grew up spelling the British way in Nigeria but now spell the American way because I went to university there. Sometimes I’m no longer sure how to spell words like ‘diarrhea.’ Ha. I work slowly. I do a lot of re-writing. I wish I could do a book a year but I don’t see that happening.

A bit left field but what do you think of the anti-racism campaign taking off in football ATM, based on re-claiming those bananas that some idiots were throwing on to the pitch in an offensive way?

@SuburbanCrofter

Sorry have just read previous posts and realise there is an important political discussion taking place about hair - I just thought yours looked nice in the author pictures I have seen of you!

Slinks off in shame at lack of political awareness

This just made me laugh! No, nothing is too shallow to talk about in my opinion. And thank you. I do think that what we consider attractive and 'appropriate' about hair is also political, so your opinion is relevant.

@JugglingFromHereToThere

A bit left field but what do you think of the anti-racism campaign taking off in football ATM, based on re-claiming those bananas that some idiots were throwing on to the pitch in an offensive way?

I think it's absurd. By starting off with the bananas, it gives a kind of legitimacy to the bananas and to the idea behind them. I still can't get over the astonishment I felt when I first learned about banana throwng in football fields.

I don't think anyone knows how to spell diarrhea

@miluth

Do you always know how the main story in your books will unfold and ultimately end or do you let the story happen as you write, changing the path of the story as you go?

I have a vague idea but I never fully know and often, in the magical way that fiction happens when its going well, the characters take over and I find the story going somewhere else that I had not quite imagined.