The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

“Many people at the restaurant asked when you had come back from Jamaica, because they thought that every black person with a foreign accent was Jamaican. Or some who guessed that you were African told you that they loved elephants and wanted to go on a safari.”

Adiche is one of the most prevalent writers of our generation. As a black female author from Nigeria, who spends lots of her time in America, her novels unsurprisingly heavily feature life in Nigeria or life in America as a Nigerian, often laden with the theme of feminism.

‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ is a collection of short stories all of which hit in a different way – most provoked tears. But that is not to say that Nigeria is the all-defining part of these stories; these stories are quite simply about humans and human nature and can be understood by anyone. They span familial, friend and romantic relationships, education, civil unrest and identity. You will come away inspired and completely in awe of Adiche’s way with language – that is, if you haven’t already devoured her other work.

#FLODown: Short stories that have all the trappings of novels, but as they have less words they can sometimes leave you feeling shortchanged. The characters in Adiche’s short stories are so rich and their stories are so meaningful that although you could keep reading about them for days, each story comes to a natural and poignant end.

Words by Mollie Kate Cohen