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Title details for The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Available

The Thing Around Your Neck

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adjoa Andoh
Audiobook
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1 of 1 copy available
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun), with “prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes” (The Boston Globe); The Washington Post called her “the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe.” Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts—graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters’ hearts—on display. Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.
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 in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos 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 reexamine them.
Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our most essential writers.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 31, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781524781736
      • File size: 197126 KB
      • Duration: 06:50:40

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 6, 2009
      Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun
      ) stays on familiar turf in her deflated first story collection. The tension between Nigerians and Nigerian-Americans, and the question of what it means to be middle-class in each country, feeds most of these dozen stories. Best known are “Cell One,” and “The Headstrong Historian,” which have both appeared in the New Yorker
      and are the collection’s finest works. “Cell One,” in particular, about the appropriation of American ghetto culture by Nigerian university students, is both emotionally and intellectually fulfilling. Most of the other stories in this collection, while brimming with pathos and rich in character, are limited. The expansive canvas of the novel suits Adichie’s work best; here, she fixates mostly on romantic relationships. Each story’s observations illuminate once; read in succession, they take on a repetitive slice-of-life quality, where assimilation and gender roles become ready stand-ins for what could be more probing work.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In this collection of 12 short stories, some of which have been previously published, author Adichie offers a glimpse into the lives of a diverse cross section of Nigerians in their home country. The stories also depict Nigerian-Americans as they navigate the culture of the United States, which is often at odds with their previous experiences and expectations. Narrator Adjoa Andoh delivers an impressive and engrossing performance, complete with accurate Nigerian accents for the various protagonists, many of whom are strong women or women who are just realizing their strength. Andoh is always sensitive to the tone of the story--by turns delicate or forceful where appropriate. S.E.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      The main characters in Adichie's short stories are Nigerians of varied ages and lifestyles. Narrator Adjoa Andoh spins the tales in the voices of the main characters, allowing the listener to envision them and travel with them through their life stories. Andoh modulates her voice so that character changes are evident while maintaining the realism of the scenes. The listener is invited to into the lives of an upper-class Nigerian family; a single woman, formerly married; a young Nigerian woman who is living in the U.S.; and others. B.T.D. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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