Meet the "Americanah"

Farafina is proud to announce the Nigerian edition of Americanah, the highly anticipated novel by award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The book will be released on April 21, 2013 in Lagos. In the months following the release, the author will go on a national book tour with stops in major cities across Nigeria. 

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.

Reviews

“Fearless. A towering achievement...From the place of Africans in the race politics in America, to love across continents, Americanah dares to bring us a world of a confident and self-made woman making her way in these complicated times. This is the Africa of our future. Sublime, powerful and the most political of Chimamanda's novels. She continues to blaze the way forward.” Binyavanga Wainaina, Caine Prize winner and author of One Day I Will Write About This Place

“Adichie is a word-by-word virtuoso with a sure grasp of social conundrums in Nigeria, East Coast America, and England; an omnivorous eye for resonant detail; a gift for authentic characters; pyrotechnic wit; and deep humanitarianism. Americanah is a courageous, world-class novel about independence, integrity, community, and love—and what it takes to become a ‘full human being.” Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association:

"As she did so masterfully with Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie paints on a grand canvas, boldly and confidently…This is a very funny, very warm and moving intergenerational epic that confirms Adiche’s virtuosity, boundless empathy and searing social acuity." Dave Eggers, Pulitzer prize finalist, and author of What is What

“Adichie’s great gift is that she has always brought us into the territory of the previously unexplored. She writes about that which others have kept silent. Americanah is no exception. This is not just a story that unfolds across three different continents, it is also a keenly observed examination of race, identity and belonging in the global landscapes of Africans and Americans.”  Colum McCann, IMPAC award winner and author of Let The World Spin

Upon release Americanah will be available in all major bookstores across the country but can be pre-ordered by emailing orders@kachifo.com, calling +2348077364217 or tweeting at: @farafinabooks 

Price: Hardback N5000, Paperback N2500.

Book Launch of Eghosa Imasuen’s Fine Boys

Details here.

Chimamanda Adichie at Calabash Lit Fest in Jamaica

Photo by Andre Bagoo

The Calabash International Literary Festival returned after a one-year break to offer a full feast of readings, conversations and discussions about writing, and music from May 25 to 27 at its customary location, Jakes in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. Although located in a remote village, the festival, which scheduled a mix of local and international talent, is the most popular event of its kind in Jamaica, pulling an attendance of thousands over the three days. The organisers—led by film producer Justine Henzell and poet and lecturer Kwame Dawes—had as the theme “Jubilation”, in recognition of Jamaica's 50th anniversary of political independence.

The opening evening, Friday, slated Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and New York City native, Victor Lavalle, under the banner “Two the Hard Way”. Although the organisers usually stay away from naming headliners, Ms Adichie was the pulling card for the hundreds who made her presentation their main event. Adichie's two novels, Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, are well known to recreational readers in Jamaica, so her audience was excited to see her and they showed her love from the moment she touched the stage. She, in turn, seemed to sense the good vibe and executed a flawless delivery.

Her appearance in her trademark cosmopolitan styling went down well with the crowd which was made up mostly of professionals, academics, corporate executives and practitioners in the creative industries.

Photo by Andre Bagoo

Not all writers are captivating readers, but Ms Adichie had the full package. Adichie selected to read material about her own life and family in Nigeria and her natural voice has warm tones which carry her own words calmly, with conviction and with beauty. Perhaps unknown to her, she is a package that is already known to us—and beloved by us—the flowering of the daughter of a leading academic, exposed from a young age to good writing, informed discussions about ideas, and also passionately patriotic about her country.

Adichie’s first reading was recollections of the university campus house where she was raised, and which had been previously lived in by Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe—one of her writing influences. She presents the home as a quiet place for reflections, dreams and a place to return to and feel rooted in. It is also where she started her first writing projects.

Achebe is the African writer that most Jamaican readers would know. He spoke a few years ago at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and many at the festival would have attended that event. For those in the audience who had the memory of his reading informing their senses as they listened to her, the dual experience would have seemed satisfying and meaningful.

May is a rainy month in Jamaica, even in the water-parched region of Treasure Beach, but it did not rain this year. Somehow, mosquitos find a way to survive and they bit into Adichie as she started her second selection. A volunteer lady-in-waiting, clad in unadorned white linen, wafted out of the audience and generously misted Adichie with repellent. She graciously acknowledged the pampering and flowed into the second reading.

Recollecting her Uncle Mai was a much more intimate reading. Adichie opened up on her personal experience of losing a loved one—a beloved uncle who died recently from a chronic disease. As writer, Adichie expertly handled bearing witness to the ongoing deterioration of someone who was close to her; and the inevitable committal of the body. Her words were clear, calm, accepting of what the family had to face, especially with his decision to limit his options for treatment.

Adichie became known to many in Jamaica through a speech that she delivered with thoughts on The Danger of a Single Story. That video went viral because of how she delivered that oft-lamented petulance that stories outside of the interest of major media outlets are not told. One listener said it was "revolutionary" because she was able to use her platform of fame to further the message with a clear, calm and beautiful delivery. Adichie packed those characteristics into her reading in Treasure Beach and at some time in the future she will know that Jamaicans reward that respect of audience with long memories of affection.

—Gwyneth Harold is a writer in Jamaica. Her book for young adults Bad Girls in School was published by Harcourt and is a part of the Caribbean Writers Series. She is currently working on another novel.

The Lit Bash at Jamaica's Calabash

Jamaica's famous Calabash Festival returned from a one-year hiatus to celebrate the Caribbean island's 50th independence anniversary with a great line-up of authors that included Nigeria's Chimamanda Adichie and the Jamaican National Book Award-winning writer and academic, Orlando Patterson. The festival ended successfully this past weekend, and in this blog post we have collated a number of reports.

Find photos and an ultra-short report over at Andre Bagoo's blog. A snippet:

Like the recently concluded Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, the programme featured a wide range of talent from the Caribbean, the diaspora and all over the world. Readers included Adichie, Jamaican writer and poet Olive Senior, Orlando Patterson, Victor Lavalle, and many more.

At Tallawah Magazine you can read about the Panama Canal and mosquitoes, as well as a short interview with Olive Senior and a longer one with Orlando Patterson. About his rise to literary prominence, Patterson says:

I saw my future mainly as a literary person, and I did quite well in England while I was a graduate student. I published my second novel and was publishing stories in all the major newspapers and so on, and I was doing reviews for the Times Literary Supplement. So I saw the trajectory primarily as one as a novelist. But there were times I was rethinking what I should be doing with my life because financially I felt a strong sense of responsibility to help look after my parents.

And finally, from the web pages of Jamaica's most respected newspaper, The Gleaner, comes this bit of info:

The Gleaner asked one of the organisers, Kwame Dawes, if the festival was on track for next year. He responded by saying although they were committed to carrying on the festival, it would be dependent on the funding. He, however, noted that entry for the event would remain free. Dawes said to host the event, approximately US$100,000 (J$8.7 million) is needed. So far, they have had a fund-raising dinner and they have instituted a system where people can donate money to the festival. Dawes said the Jamaica Tourist Board has supported the event and he is hopeful that they will get the required funding to continue the festival, not just from the tourist board, but in general.

Chimamanda Adichie at the Hay Festival 2012

For ten days,  the Hay Festival will feature debates and conversations with poets and scientists, novelists and historians, artists and gardeners, comedians and musicians, filmmakers and politicians. Chimamanda Adichie--award winning author of Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and The Thing Around Your Neck--will join other writers at the Hay this year. She will be talking about The Commonwealth Lecture, even as the Hay host for the first time the announcement of the winners of the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Short Story Prize. The judges will discuss the judging process and the winning writers will be in conversation with Harriett Gilbert.  (We are working towards bringing you pictures from the event. So check back for those.)

Adichie has been part of the Rainbow Book Club's Get Nigeria Reading Campaign.

Last week, she wrote in the Financial Times about a man of grace, her Uncle Mai.

Sometimes he laughed aloud, short joyous bursts, at his own stories: how my grandfather had refused to leave our fallen hometown and had instead dug a hole in the front yard and climbed in with his rusted Dane gun, how he, Uncle Mai, was so filthy and soap-deprived towards the end of the war that he climbed into a stream and bathed with raw unripe cassava, although he was not sure whether the cassava made him even dirtier. And as he spoke, I thought of the word “grace”. He was an easy man to like, a man who forgave easily. He was also a man who believed easily. In the months of his illness, many purveyors of health trooped through his compound gates: Pentecostal prayer warriors, traditional herbalists, self-styled doctors. They brought him specially cooked meals, or they lit candles and prayed all night or they claimed to unearth the cause of his illness in the soil beneath the ube tree.

 Go here to read the rest of the piece.

Jahazi Literary & Jazz Festival 2012

The newly created Jahazi Literary & Jazz Festival in Zanzibar has just announced its lineup of artists for this year's festival on Facebook. Among the guest authors are Ugandan Doreen Baingana and Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Doreen Baingana visited Port Harcourt in February of this year for a reading organised by the Rainbow Book Club. Rainbow Book Club, which is the organiser of the Garden City Literary Festival, has hosted many award-winning authors, including Caine Prize winner E. C. Osondu, Uwem Akpan, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani and Kaine Agary, amongst others.