Book Review! - Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
When I first read " Purple Hibiscus", I was hit by the power of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's writing. Followed it up with " Half of A Yellow Sun", "Americanah" & "We should be Feminists". I was exhilarated. She is explosive!
But, today, after reading this essay " Notes on Grief", I am awestruck. The grief at her father's death, dealing with the aftermath of loss is written with such raw emotions & honesty, that her words, sentences seem to be keening. The feelings that she lets you see/feel by letting you inside her mind/heart/soul envelop you, both, in tenderness and fear.
Reminiscent of Joan Didion's tragically brilliant " The Year of Magical Thinking", this essay will perhaps leave readers with a strange combination of restlessness and acceptance of loss.
I wept. Having lost my father in the recent past, it opened up wounds that never heal. Yes, that's what she tells you... and, yes we learn to live with the grief.
Her father was the scholar James Nwoye Adichie ( 1930-2020). Through the eyes of his daughter, we get to know this amazing man who lived his life with courage, grace and humility. She writes: " I liked that his response to power was a shrug. He worshipped integrity".
I can't & shouldn't rate the essay, as it's a memoir of a father by his daughter. But, if I have to talk about the author, two words come to my mind: Iridescent and magnificent.
Please do read it.
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