Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Review of The Thing Around Your Neck

I’m continuing to have a book of short stories ‘in-progress’ alongside longer fiction –a way of ensuring there’s reading for whatever mood I’m in!!    In what seems to be Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s first collection of short fiction, and was not an easy book to find even in Hay on Wye, these stories draw on the ancient and modern lives of Nigerian women, and occasionally of the men in their lives.

Adiche writes of events happening at the intersection of people’s lives and the influences of the relationship between their country and the ‘West’, usually the USA. These are powerful tales, sometimes disturbing, often uplifting, frequently she shines a light on a very small part of life in a detailed and engaging way. Well worth the search and a worthy companion to Half a Yellow Sun. 

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