The Thing Around Your Neck

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the Women’s Prize-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun come twelve dazzling stories that turn a penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the West.

‘Makes storytelling seem as easy as birdsong’ TELEGRAPH

‘Writing of clarity and brilliance’ GUARDIAN

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 centre 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.

‘An elegant collection. From beginning to end the prose is serene and the characterization deft’ TLS

Format: Paperback
Release Date: 23 Feb 2017
Pages: 300
ISBN: 978-0-00-730621-3
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.

‘The Thing Around your Neck, with its warm and sympathetic heroines and its finely cadenced un-American English prose, demonstrates that she is keeping faith with her talent and with her country' Sunday Times -

”'Her particular gift is the seductive ability to tell a story…Adichie writes with an economy and precision that makes the strange seem familiar. She makes storytelling seem as easy as birdsong” - Telegraph

”'Adichie’s spare, poised prose, the coolness of her phrasing, ensures these scenes are achieved without melodrama. And though she writes very specifically about Nigeria, the stories have a universal application” - Financial Times

”'An elegant collection. From beginning to end the prose is serene and the characterization deft” - TLS

‘The powerful themes close to Adichie’s heart shine through, but never over-shadow writing of clarity and brilliance' Guardian -