What If

Searing and profound, suffused with magnificence, distress, and yearning, these stories map, with Adichie's unique enthusiastic insight, the crash of two societies and the profoundly human battle to accommodate them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resonating affirmation of the enormous scholarly powers of one of our most fundamental essayists.

From the award winning creator of We Should All Be Feminists - the story is about the narrative of two Nigerians advancing in the U.S. also, the UK, bringing up widespread issues of race, having a place, the abroad experience for the African diaspora, and the quest for identity and a home. Ifemelu and Obinze are youthful and in love when they left military-administered Nigeria for the West. Delightful, confident Ifemelu sets out toward America, where regardless of her scholarly achievement, she is compelled to wrestle with being dark for the first time. Calm, smart Obinze had would have liked to join her, however with post-9/11 America closed to him, he rather dives into a risky, undocumented life in London. After fifteen years, they rejoin in a recently democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion for one another and for their country.

Efuru is a novel by Flora Nwapa. The book is about a talented, brilliant, and beautiful Igbo woman named Efuru. She falls in love with a poor farmer called Adizua and flees with him, disappointing her people as he did not even perform the traditional wine carrying and pay her bride price.