The Thing Around Your Neck

Description

From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Orange Prize-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, come twelve dazzling stories in which she turns her penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the West. In 'A Private Experience,' a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she's been pushing away. In 'Tomorrow Is Too Far,' a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother's death. The young mother at the center of 'Imitation' finds her comfortable life threatened when she learns that her husband back in Lagos has moved his mistress into their home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to re-examine them. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow and longing, this collection is a resounding confirmation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's prodigious storytelling powers.

Awards

Shortlisted for John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize 2009.

Reviews

Praise for 'Half of a Yellow Sun' 'I look with awe and envy at this young woman from Africa who is recording the history of her country. She is fortunate - and we, her readers, are even luckier.' Edmund White 'Here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers.' Chinua Achebe 'Heartbreaking, funny, exquisitely written and, without doubt, a literary masterpiece and a classic.' Daily Mail 'Stunning. It has a ramshackle freedom and exuberant ambition.' Observer 'Vividly written, thrumming with life!a remarkable novel. In its compassionate intelligence as in its capacity for intimate portraiture, this novel is a worthy successor to such twentieth-century classics as Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" and V.S. Naipaul's "A Bend in the River".' Joyce Carol Oates 'Rarely have I felt so there, in the middle of all that suffering. I wasted the last fifty pages, reading them far too greedily and fast, because I couldn't bear to let go!It is a magnificent second novel - and can't fail to find the readership it deserves and demands.' Margaret Forster 'This magnificent novel is a gripping portrayal of the horrors of war!A major new African voice.' Independent

Author description

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977. Her first novel 'Purple Hibiscus' was published in 2003 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her second novel 'Half of a Yellow Sun' won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.