The Thing Around Your Neck

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The Thing Around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I've been looking forward to this book for some time.  It's a collection of short stories, and I am not really much of a short story person, but I should try more.  Anyway I enjoyed these very much and zipped right through the book as though I was eating a package of Pringles. 

The stories are all different--written from every point of view and often in slightly different styles--but they are all about life for Nigerians.  Most are set in Nigeria, but a fair number take place in the US and involve adapting to a strange country.  All are intensely personal stories--perhaps about domestic life or a new marriage, or one person's experience during terrifying large events such as riots or the Biafran war.  The final story is called "The Headstrong Historian," but only gets to the historian at the end, after we live the life of the historian's grandmother.

I loved these stories, and this only confirms
what I already knew--that Adichie is a really excellent writer.

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 28, 2014 at 6:23 AM

    Not surprised to hear these stories are wonderful! I absolutely love Adichie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanSeptember 29, 2014 at 2:29 PM

    Yeah! I'll need to read Americanah next I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AartiOctober 3, 2014 at 6:29 AM

    I'm such a huge fan of Adichie's novels, so I cannot wait to try her short stories, too! I hope you love Americanah as much as I did.

    Thanks so much for participating in #Diversiverse :-)

    ReplyDelete

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