The Thing Around Your Neck - Softcover

Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007379625 ISBN 13: 9780007379620

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2010

Synopsis

The new collection of stories from the Orange Prize-winning author of ‘Purple Hibiscus’ and ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’.

The first work from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie since her bestselling, prize-winning and phenomenally successful Richard and Judy pick 'Half of a Yellow Sun'. Told with the vividness and insight that make her novels exceptional, these are stories of universal conflicts - between culture, gender, responsibility and identity.

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.

About this title

Review:

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

About the Author:

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. Her short story collection, ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’, was published to critical acclaim in 2009. Her work has been selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards, has appeared in various literary publications, including Zoetrope and The Iowa Review. She won a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant in 2009, and in 2010 appeared on the New Yorker’s list of the best 20 writers under 40. Her third novel, ‘Americanah’, was published to widespread critical acclaim in 2013. She lives in Nigeria.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007379625
• ISBN 13: 9780007379620
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300