The Thing Around Your Neck

My friend Francine, who sensibly chose to read English at Cambridge, knowing my insatiable appetite for novels, asked me to taste and see that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was good five years ago. I devoured Purple Hibiscus. Sated and ravenous, I only halfheartedly digested Half of a Yellow Sun, because I felt that it did not reflect the brilliance of the first novel—maybe precisely because Purple Hibiscus could not be matched at all in the way it presented the fragrance, colour, and texture of Nigeria.