We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.In her long-awaited return to fiction, the author of "Americanah," Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, presents "Dream Count" (Knopf), an intricately woven novel that spans continents and classes.With her signature wit and insight, Adichie follows four Nigerian women in North America and Africa – a travel writer, a lawyer, a banker and a maid – as she explores love, ambition, family expectations, and the forces that shape women's choices.Read an excerpt below. "Dream Count" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie $24 at Amazon Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
Try Audible for free I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being.Sometimes we live for years with yearnings that we cannot name.
Until a crack appears in the sky and widens and reveals us to ourselves, as the pandemic did, because it was during lockdown that I began to sift through my life and give names to things long unnamed.I vowed at first to make the most of this collective sequestering: if I had no choice but to stay indoors, then I would oil my thinning edges every day, drink eight tall glasses of water, jog on the treadmill, sleep long, luxurious hours, and pat rich serums on my skin.
But, only days in, I was spiralling in a bottomless well.Words and warnings swirled and spun, and I felt as if all human progress was swiftly reversing to an ancient stage of confusion: don't touch your face; wash your hands; don't go outside; spray disinfectant; wash your hands; don't go outside; don't touch your face.
Did washing my face count as touching? I always used a face towel, but one morning my palm grazed my cheek and I froze, the tap water still running.I was alone in my house in Maryland, in suburban silence, the eerie roads bordered by trees that themselves seemed stilled.
No cars drove past.I looked out a...