Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is back in stores soon with her latest release, “Zikora“.
“Zikora,” which would be her first official piece of fiction in over seven years, is a short story about a Nigerian lawyer living in Washington, D.C. who has been abandoned by her highly-celebrated partner after learning that she’s pregnant.
The story follows Zikora’s life as she faces losing and being abandoned by her lover in such a life changing moment, as well as a tense relationship with her “helpful” mother who comes to help her prepare for her journey into motherhood.
In an excerpt from the short story, we gain a deeper understanding of how tumultuous the relationship between mother and daughter truly is.
Below is an excerpt from “Zikora,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:
Once, I was about nine, and my father’s second wife, Aunty Nwanneka, had just had a baby, my brother Ugonna (“Your half brother,” my mother always said). To visit the baby, my mother asked me to wear a going-out dress, red and full skirted, as though for church. Aunty Nwanneka offered us plantain and fish, the house smelled of delicious frying, and my mother said no thank you, that we had just eaten, but when I went to pee, I told Aunty Nwanneka I was hungry, and she brought me a plate, smiling, her face plump and fresh. Later, as we walked to the car, my mother slapped me. “Don’t disgrace me like that again,” she said calmly, and for a long time I remembered the sudden vertigo, feeling surprise rather than pain as her palm struck the back of my head.
I was disgracing her now; I was not facing labor with laced-up dignity. She wanted me to meet each rush of pain with a mute grinding of teeth, to endure pain with pride, to embrace pain, even. When I had severe cramps as a teenager, she would say, “Bear it, that is what it means to be a woman,” and it was years before I knew that girls took Buscopan for period pain.
For the full excerpt head to Entertainment Weekly. “Zikora” will be available on October 27 as part of an Amazon Original series.
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