Americana

Author's Name: Chima Manda Ngozi Adichie

“‘Fat’ is a bad word in America, simmering with moral judgment like ‘stupid’ or ‘ass,’ not a descriptor like ‘short’ or ‘tall.’ So she cut ‘fat’ from her vocabulary. But the word came back to her last winter, almost thirteen years later, when a man behind her in line as she was paying for a large bag of tortilla chips murmured, ‘Fatty people don’t need to eat that shit!’ She looked at him, surprised, offended. She said ‘fat’ slowly, moving it back and forth, and remembered all the other things she’d learned not to say out loud in America. It was fat; not plump or scrawny; just fat. And it was the only word that seemed true. She also ignored the stillness in her soul. She’d felt it for some time, in the morning sickness of exhaustion, the boundless melancholy, accompanied by featureless cravings and formless desires, and brief imaginary thoughts of other lives You can live it.” * What does it really mean for someone to try to become “American”? And why are there terms and jokes given to those returning from the West to their homelands with changing characteristics and different methods that irritate those who never left? “Americana” tells the story of the struggle of Ifemelu and Obinze, two Nigerian university lovers who were separated by dreams of immigrating to the New World, expecting to find opportunities for creativity, freedom, and life. They collide with many walls that push them apart for fifteen years, during which they struggle with the world that is Americanizing them without anyone raising their voice. In America, Ifemelu once sold her body, and in London, Obinze cleaned bathrooms. But when they return home, they are surprised by the high-class treatment of them because they are returning from the New World. They are placed in a higher class, only to meet again and begin another story in their homeland, more cruel than the first.