Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “called Americanah her ‘fuck-you book,’ by which she meant she no longer felt that she must be a dutiful literary daughter responsible for her country’s history: she would write what she felt like. Her first two novels had been written in the voices of characters who were younger and more naïve than she; the protagonist of Americanah, a young woman named Ifemelu, would be her equal.”