I’ve loved everything I’ve read so far by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a writer who weaves captivating and compelling stories of great strength, populated by characters so vividly brought to life that we find ourselves really feeling with them.

From the devastating effects of political and social unrest on everyday families to traditional religion and culture in the face of colonial influence; from the challenges of migration, and arranged or empty marriages to the dynamics of family and community; from police corruption and brutality to prejudice and sexism; Adichie explores all these and much more in her short stories collection The Thing Around Your Neck; stories all born from the people, communities and culture of her country of birth Nigeria, but moving back and forth between there and new lives begun in America. 

A story that stood out for me was ‘A Private Experience’ where a Hausa Muslim woman, a poor onion seller, and an Igbo Christian woman, a medical university student, find themselves hiding in the same place during riots caused by religion with undertones of ethnic tension. The unexpected exchanges that occur, and insights that are revealed, in a small, intimate space as violence rages outside, make for a powerful and moving story.  

Through her protagonists’ eyes, Adichie often explores the different ways in which Africans adapt to life in America. In the titular story ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ a young African woman is adapting to, but struggling with, life in a different America to what she was promised, eventually becoming the girlfriend of an American man captivated by the idea of Africa. In ‘The Shivering’ a woman studying at university makes friends with an elusive fellow-African man in a story that explores themes including relationships, identity, belonging, narcissism, religion, and sexuality. 

Adichie’s stories often explore family and community dynamics, where some kind of internal pressure has devastating consequences, as in ‘Cell One’ where a young man’s unjustified need to match his peers ends in a first-hand experience of local police brutality and corruption, ‘Tomorrow is Too Far’ where a young child’s jealousy and lies have tragic consequences that will haunt her, and ‘The American Embassy’ which explores the devastating effects of political unrest on families. 

Adichie’s protagonists are often faced with hardships and challenges, and sometimes find their own ways, no matter how big or small, to wrest back some control of their lives. In ‘Imitation’ a woman reflects on the art collection around her comfortable American home, where she lives with her children, as symbolic of her and her husband’s relationship; a collection built up by this husband who remains in Nigeria save for occasional visits, and whose secret life without her comes to light. A simple but meaningful act of defiance allows her to reclaim some sense of self. In ‘Jumping Monkey Hill’, writers from all over Africa are almost pitted against each other by a rich South African host, with our protagonist eventually taking a stand and removing herself from being used in his games. In the wonderful, multi-generational closing story ‘The Headstrong Historian’, a woman defies the conventions of her rural community and conniving family-in-law, despite the rebukes and hardships endured, and finds her own way to try her best for her family, only for her resilience and determination to flow down the family line.

These are acutely observed stories, delivered with great heart, insight and compassion. Throughout, Adichie’s powers of storytelling and character building ensure that each and every story is affecting in its own way.

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The Thing Around Your Neck was published by Fourth Estate in 2017.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1977. She grew up on the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where her father was a professor and her mother was the first female Registrar. She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts degree in African History from Yale University. She was awarded a Hodder fellowship at Princeton University for the 2005-2006 academic year, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University for the 2011-2012 academic year. In 2008, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), won the Orange Prize. Her 2013 novel Americanah won the US National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of The New York Times Top Ten Best Books of 2013. Her most recent work, Notes On Grief, an essay about losing her father, was published in 2021. Full bio here