Summary

The narrator in “Tomorrow Is Too Far” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recalls the last summer she spent in Nigeria at her grandmother’s house, together with her brother Nonso and her cousin Dozie. She remembers how they used to pick fruits from the trees, and how her brother was favored by his grandmother as her son’s son: the descendant who will carry on the family name. The narrator recalls that she was in love with her cousin, and how that was the summer her brother died.

The narrator thinks about her grandmother’s reaction to Nonso’s death, and how the neighbors called her mother in America who demanded for the body of the boy to be transported to America. The narrator recalls talking to her mother on the phone and thinking how her mother always favored Nonso.

Now, 18 years later, the narrator...