A Young Woman From Nigeria Leaves Behind Her Home And Her First Love To Start A New Life In America, Only To Find Her Dreams Are Not All She Expected. Ifemelu -- Beautiful, Self-assured -- Left Nigeria 15 Years Ago, And Now Studies In Princeton As A Graduate Fellow. She Seems To Have Fulfilled Every Immigrant's Dream: Ivy League Education; Success As A Writer Of A Popular Political Blog; Money For The Things She Needs. But What Came Before Is More Like A Nightmare: Painful Departure From Family; Humiliating Jobs Under A False Name. She Feels For The First Time The Weight Of Something She Didn't Think About Back Home: Race. Obinze -- Handsome And Kind-hearted -- Was Ifemelu's Teenage Love. He'd Hoped To Join Her In America, But Post-9/11 America Wouldn't Take Him. His Journey Leads Him Through Back Alleys Of Illegal Employment In London; To A Fake Marriage For The Sake Of A Work Card; And Finally To A Set Of Handcuffs As He Is Exposed And Deported. Yet Once Home He Too Finds Success -- As The Kind Of 'big Man' In Lagos He'd Scorned In His Youth. One Day, Answering A Text Message From Obinze That She Cannot Resist, Ifemelu Decides To Return Home, Only To Discover She's Become An 'americanah' -- A Different Version Of Herself, One With A New Accent And Attitude. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.