One Book One Community 2020: Americanah: Keep Reading

From NoveList Plus: 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes character-driven novels and short stories about life in Nigeria and America. Her prose is luxuriant and highly evocative; you'll feel as though you're in the thick of the jungle or the middle of a shabby apartment in New York City. Adichie's characters are equally as compelling. They will continue to resonate within you long after you've finished reading. Violence, injustice, and despair stand shoulder to shoulder with compassion, bravery, and love in her fiction. Adichie shows that family and friends are the foundations upon which are our lives are built.

If you like works by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, you may also like...

Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie conjure evocative literary fiction about the fraught relationships between first-generation immigrants and their home cultures. They tell of the quest to both assimilate and to establish an individual identity in lyrical, complex prose. -- Mike Nilsson

Imbolo Mbue

Chimamanda Adichie and Imbolo Mbue evocatively describe the internal conflicts of adults who have grown up under post-colonial African regimes and immigrated to the U.S. in search of a better life, only to discover new pitfalls. -- Lynne Welch

Zadie Smith

Both Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are well-known feminists whose often-flawed characters search for their place in a post-colonial, globalized world. Their incisive descriptions and poignantly introspective narratives have a similar feel, although Smith is more likely to use zany humor or even a farcical tone than Adichie. -- Halle Eisenman

Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen and Chimamanda Adichie write fiction that focuses on outsiders -- exiled Florida frontiersmen for Matthiessen and expatriate Nigerians for Chimamanda. Their character-driven work is as bleak as it is lyrical; both feature evocative atmospheres and moving story lines. -- Mike Nilsson

Chika Unigwe

Chimamanda Adichie and Chika Unigwe are both award-winning Nigerian feminists who bring humor, poignancy, and a strong sense of place to character-driven tales of women who emigrate to the West in search of a better life but who remain homesick for their own culture. -- Lynne Welch

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explore similar themes of longing, return, memory, and history. Their novels are lyrical, thoughtful, and politically incisive; a strong sense of place and an emotionally intense tone draw the reader into the characters' hearts and minds as they attempt to change their lives, not always for the better. -- Halle Eisenman

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga and Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie write resonant fiction about colonial and post-colonial Africa, often set in their respective home countries. Their carefully rendered female protagonists are compelling as individuals and as representations of the issues plaguing modern African women: violence, economic inequality, and endemic misogyny. -- Mike Nilsson​