Chimamanda’s `Americanah’ Listed Among 21st Century Books By Women

Chimamanda's `Americanah' Listed Among 21st Century Books By Women

Chimamanda Adichie's 'Americanah' among 21st century remarkable books by women.Photo:The New york Times

 Chimamanda Adichie's novel, Americanah, has been recognised as one of 15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way fiction was being written and read in the 21st century."

The book was listed by the New York Times Staff Book Critics among fiction books, each of which features a woman at its center, to mark Women's History Month.

According to The New York Times, on their selection process, the 15 books were fictional novels that addressed diverse issues.

""For Women's History Month, Times staff book critics sat down together to think about these writers who are opening new realms to us, whose books suggest and embody unexplored possibilities in form, feeling and knowledge.

""As we put together a reading list, we introduced a few parameters, for sanity's sake, and we confined ourselves to books written by women and published in the 21st century.

""They are graphic novels, literary fiction and works inflected with horror and fantasy.

"They hail from Italy, Canada, Nigeria and South Korea, and they are wildly experimental and staunchly realist."

NAN reports that 'Americanah' is a 2013 novel, for which Adichie won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Fiction award.

'Americanah' tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who moves to the United States to attend university.

It traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate, Obinze.
In 2013, the book was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the year by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.

It was shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction of the United Kingdom.

The Chicago Tribune awarded Adichie its 2013 Heartland Award for Fiction, recognising Americanah as a novel that engages with important ideas about race, and does so with style, wit and insight.

In March 2017, Americanah was picked as the winner for the "One Book, One New York" program, part of a community reading initiative encouraging all city residents to read the same book.

The Women's History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society.

It is celebrated in March in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and other parts of the world, corresponding with International Women's Day on March 8.

Browse More Articles

Tweet

Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE

Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner