Characters

Ifemelu

Ifemelu is the main character in the excerpt from the novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is a Nigerian young woman who has immigrated to America to attend university. She writes a popular blog in which she discusses her experience as a non-American black woman in the US, which shows that she is aware that race is a topical issue in the United States. Through her blog posts, Ifemelu shows that she does not shy away from addressing uncomfortable topics related to race and racism.

In her two blog posts, Ifemelu addresses two categories of readers – black immigrants into the United States (like her), and American citizens who are not black. She mainly uses her experience in her blog posts and offers some insights into her past. For example, she is honest when she talks about the moment she first realized she had no connection with the concept of “the black perspective”, as she did not think of herself as black back in Nigeria. 

Ifemelu is humorous, such as when she mentions that “black people have a gene that makes t...