Celebrated Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has disclosed that her new short story, ‘Zikora’ will be available in stores soon.
‘Zikora’ would be her first piece of fiction since ‘Americanah’ which was released in 2013.
In this latest work, Adichie, who has been engaging and enlightening her fans with special readings and discussions via social media, beams a searchlight on the many complications of childbirth.
The short story chronicles the life of Zikora, a Nigerian lawyer living in Washington, D.C. who has been abandoned by her highly-celebrated partner after learning that she’s pregnant. In such a life changing moment, she also struggles to cope in a tense relationship with her “helpful” mother who comes to help her prepare for her journey into motherhood.
‘Zikora’ will be available on October 27 as part of Amazon Original series.
An excerpt from the short story depicts how turbulent the relationship between a mother and daughter can be.
Excerpt from ‘Zikora’, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Once, I screamed, a short scream that lanced the air in the hospital room, and she said, “That’s how labor is,” in Igbo, and I wanted to say, “No shit,” but of course she didn’t understand colloquial Americanisms. I had prepared for pain but this was not mere pain. It was something like pain and different from pain. It sat like fire in my back, spreading to my thighs, squeezing and crushing my insides, pulling downward, spiraling. It felt like the Old Testament. A plague. A primitive wind blowing at will, evil but purposelessly so, an overcoming in my body that didn’t need to be. Hour after hour of this, and yet the nurses said I wasn’t progressing. “You’re not progressing,” the smaller nurse said as though it were my fault.
