Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Is Releasing A New Short Story, Zikora

Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is releasing her first piece of fiction since 2013’s Americanah. The short story book, Zikora would be hitting the stores soon.

chimamanda ngozi adichie zikora
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Zikora tells the story of a Nigerian Lawyer based in Washington, D.C., who was abandoned by her partner after he learned that she was pregnant for him.

Zikora has to go through the challenge of losing her partner while she goes through a life changing moment of her life and at the same time, meandering a tense relationship with her own Nigerian mother who has come to prepare her for her journey to motherhood.

Zikora will be available on October 27th as part of the Amazon Original Series.

Excerpt from “Zikora,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

All through the night my mother sat near me but never touched me.

Once, I screamed, a short scream that lanced the air in the hospital room, and she said, “That’s how labor is,” in Igbo, and I wanted to say, “No shit,” but of course she didn’t understand colloquial Americanisms. I had prepared for pain but this was not mere pain. It was something like pain and different from pain. It sat like fire in my back, spreading to my thighs, squeezing and crushing my insides, pulling downward, spiraling. It felt like the Old Testament. A plague. A primitive wind blowing at will, evil but purposelessly so, an overcoming in my body that didn’t need to be. Hour after hour of this, and yet the nurses said I wasn’t progressing. “You’re not progressing,” the smaller nurse said as though it were my fault.

This excerpt was orginally published on Entertainment Weekly. Continue reading the excerpt here.

Read Also: “Lagos Will Not Court You” – Novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Talks Living In Lagos In Esquire’s New Travel & Adventure Issue

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