This book was strongly recommended for me by a friend after I wrote about how I became Latin after moving to Canada. My friend, also an author herself, said I that I would see myself in the words of Chimamanda.

And oh, I did.

First of all, the main character, Ifemelu, is also on a journey of discovery of her own ethnicity. She literally says:

But I’m putting the cart before the horses here. Let’s start from the beginning, from the story of Ifemelu.

Ifemelu is sharp and self-assured Nigerian woman that gets the chance to immigrate to the United States. She is young and in love with her boyfriend Obinze, and he plans to follow her as soon as possible. But then it comes 9/11, and the doors to America are slammed on his face.

As times goes by, life gets in the way, and they find themselves distant, not only physically, but emotionally. Ifemelu makes her career in America. Obinze goes to the United Kingdom, trying to start a new chapter. The story follows both of them closely, and their longing for each other sets the tone for the entire book.

But luckily for us, Ifemelu is so much more than her love story. She is intelligent, educated, and sharp as a tack. She gets fascinated with the race issue in America, as she suddenly sees herself as Black for the first time.

And yes, she was born a Black African, and she has a mirror at home. The point here is not just the colour of her skin. She had always been Black, but she never had to identify herself as Black, she never had to think about herself as belonging to the Black Community.

And the question is: does she fully identifies herself with the Black American community? Or does she belong to yet another cultural group?

Chimamanda takes this discussion throughout the book in such a clever way that sometimes you don’t even see it coming. She uses the voices of the characters to express points of view that would be otherwise considered polemic, and one of the main outlets is Ifemelu’s blog called “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known As Negroes) by a Non- American Black.”

It makes me wonder how much of Chimamanda there is in Ifemelu and vice-versa, as the author became known for expressing her opinions about issues like feminism in a very eloquent way.

This was not Chimamanda’s first book, but it became the most famous one. A sign of the times we are living in, when race became, finally, the discussion we all need to have. I’m dying to read her other novels, such as Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus, not to mention We Should All Be Feminists (that’s a book title, but I agree that with the statement). As always, I will write new reviews, as I go over my ever-growing list of titles to read.