“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America.”
Therein lies the crux of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s luminous third novel, Americanah, an incisive, insightful dissection of race, and transnational identity: when Ifemelu, the novel’s protagonist, left Nigeria for America, she “became black.”