As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. Expanding on her original New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year, the familial and cultural dimensions of grief, and the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the page --- and never without touches of rich, honest humor --- Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story.

Ifemelu is a young Nigerian woman who has left her country’s military dictatorship to pursue her studies in the United States. There, she starts a popular blog known for its snarky but insightful posts about the experiences of “Non-American Blacks” in America. Now she has decided to return to Nigeria, where Obinze, the boyfriend she left behind, has become a wealthy property magnate. AMERICANAH is a perceptive commentary on race relations in America.