Review
At the beginning of "A Private Experience," two Nigerian women, one Muslim, one Catholic, seek shelter together from a riot; the Muslim woman reaches up to the space around her throat where her necklace had been and says, "My necklace lost when I'm running." Later in the collection, a short story writer buys an ivory necklace, pleased with "the look of the white, tooth-shaped pendant against her throat," and takes pleasure in deliberately offending a smug, politically correct white woman by revealing that it is real ivory. And in the title story, a Nigerian expatriate in America describes how "at night, something would wrap itself around your neck, something that very nearly choked you before you fell asleep." In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's meticulously detailed stories of Nigerians at home and abroad, national identity functions as both a pendant and a millstone, alternately blessing...
Beyond the Book
Nollywood
Nigeria has long been renowned for its distinguished literary history, which features such world-famous authors as Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, and Wole Soyinka. What many Westerners don't know, however, is that Nigeria also boasts a thriving movie-making industry, dubbed Nollywood in homage to both Hollywood and Bollywood (India’s film industry). Nollywood films, released directly to DVD, generate approximately $286 million per year for Nigeria’s economy; Nollywood distributors release around 2,400 per year to an eager audience that has essentially eschewed American films.
The traditional Nigerian film industry, unlike that of many other African countries, never really took off, with poverty and political uprisings preventing a commitment to...
