Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie turns sights on the American Dream

The publication of Dream Count marks Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s much-anticipated return to fiction after a decade-long hiatus since the publication of Americanah. Her two previous bestsellers, Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) both take place in Nigeria, yet Dream Count is set in America against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A wry social commentary woven by Adichie’s evocative and reflective prose, Dream Count explores the entwined lives of four African diaspora women – Chiamaka, her best friend Zikora, her cousin Omelogor, and her housekeeper Kadiatou – all of whom are struggling with personal and societal challenges, and the concept of modern Nigerian womanhood, as their lives refuse to play out as they had planned.

The novel, just like the characters’ lives, is split between Nigeria and the US. Chiamaka, as the wealthy daughter of a “Big Man” rich Nigerian businessman, struggles to find her place in the world and live up to her parents’ expectations as she sets out to become a freelance travel writer. From London to Lisbon, her travels open her mind to a world of experiences, yet she still can’t shake the feeling that she has found where she truly belongs.

“I’m just an African who should write about struggles” she laments after her article on restaurants is rejected by her editor who asks her to write on the Congo or Sudan instead. Meanwhile Chiamaka’s mother cannot understand why her daughter is still single at forty-four and living in America, rather than returning home to Lagos. 

“From outside, America makes more sense” Chiamaka puzzles, as she tries to square her African identity with the global dominance of the US where she is reluctantly making her home. In the still moments brought on by lockdown, Chiamaka reflects on her recent, failed relationships and affairs, from a two-timing university lecturer to a secretly married Englishman, and it becomes clear that her most successful relationships are with the three closest women in her life.

Her best friend Zikora, who previously appeared in a short story published in 2020, is struggling to balance her career as a high-flying lawyer with the demands of motherhood and her family’s and society’s expectations; she recounts her experiences with men whom she describes as “thieves of time.” Faced with the traumatic delivery of her first child, she struggles with the heartbreak caused by her partner Kwame’s absence, and begins to question what the future holds for her child.

Omelogor is proud to be single and childless; she is bold and wealthy, working as a double-dealing financial powerhouse in Nigeria. Yet a crisis of faith makes her question her values, and she starts on a journey of self-discovery, setting out to help poor Nigerian women and their female-led businesses along the way. “Free money just like that? They’ll spend it. They’ll never use it for business” remarks her colleague. “You don’t know women,” is Omelogor’s response.

Omelogor is one of the most intricately detailed characters in the novel; she is a walking contradiction and makes it difficult for readers to make up their minds about her. She is brash and rude, extroverted and bad-tempered, and is involved in dubious dealings at her bank. Yet she funds female business ventures, determined to make the lives of these women that bit better, and upon moving to the US (suffering under the same heavy expectation to find a suitable husband) she writes a postgraduate dissertation on pornography and how it dehumanises women.

The anonymous blog that she starts up, For Men Only, on which she advises men about how to conduct themselves with the women in their lives (sometimes satirically, sometimes humorously, and sometimes bluntly) provides a more lighthearted distraction from the, sometimes harrowing, main plotlines.

Guinean-born Kadiatou seeks asylum in the US after the death of her husband, a country which she describes as “her daughter’s inheritance…this new land of ease.” Grateful for the opportunity to work and seek a better future, Kadiatou’s world is turned upside down when she is sexually assaulted by a prominent businessman and discovers how little power women like her hold in the court of law. Surely this can’t be the American ideal she was promised?

Indeed, Kadiatou’s traumatic assault and the racism and classism she experiences at the hands of the American justice system mirror the real-life accusations of attempted rape and sexual assault made in 2011 by Senegalese hotel housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Almost 15 years may separate Diallo’s assault from the assault experienced by Kadiatou in the novel, but as Adichie shows us, the outcome remains the same.

A rich narrative

“Are you living the life you imagined you would?” Chiamaka muses during an afternoon with her lover. She certainly isn’t, but neither are any of the protagonists. Dream Count is not a tale of happy endings or neat denouements; it is a rich narrative laced with truth, wit, compassion, and sadness that confronts the expectations and prejudices facing 21st century African diaspora women head on. The dream count referred to in the novel’s title is a central motif to the entwining plots; it includes Chiamaka’s dream of a husband, Kadiatou’s dream of a better future for her daughter, and the ephemeral American Dream sought after by all four women. Yet Ahichie leaves it ambiguous as to what extent these hopes and dreams are achieved by the novel’s end. 

The story of each of the individual women in Dream Count is so compelling, that each one could easily stand on their own as a novel – and warrant a sequel. Omelogor is brash and Chiamaka is bold, and they use their privileged positions in education to try and do good in the world and raise the profile of women. The voices of Zikora and Kadiatou are quieter in the novel, but just as resilient, as they both seek to do the best thing for their child and get by in a world that is set against them. 

At a first glance, it may appear that the lives of these four women are very different, but with each chapter, Adichie affirms that their shared experiences, values, hopes and dreams mean more than their differences. Crossing between their alternating perspectives, Adichie uses each woman’s first-person chapters to step inside their streams of consciousness and address the same question – what it means to be a good person, and in particular, a good woman – leaving the reader to come to a conclusion. 

Glorious return sealed

For fans of Adichie, Dream Count marks her glorious return as a writer. Her social commentary and lyrical prose are as sharp as ever, and Dream Count features her signature blend of fiction blended with uncomfortable and hard-hitting realism that places the reader directly amid the characters’ plights, and raises problematic questions about identity, agency and belonging. It is a tale of the resilience, love, and adversity experienced in the pursuit of happiness.

For those who aren’t fans of Adichie – simply read this book, and then you’ll discover why you should be.