After an 11-year hiatus from the bookshelf, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new novel, Dream Count, will be released on March 4, 2025.
Like a breadcrumb trail from a toxic lover, Adichie has been teasing the novel with short stories. First, Zikora (which instantly became my second-best Adichie work after Americanah, the best book I’ve ever read) was an Amazon Original, and last week, Chuka was published in The New Yorker.
I know you can’t wait to dive into Dream Count when it drops, but in the meantime, now is a great time to revisit some of her short stories.
Subscribe to the Zikoko Pop newsletter, The Feed, here.
Here are Chimamanda’s best short stories, ranked.
10. Cell One
Cell One follows a young woman who becomes increasingly disgruntled by her brother’s reckless behaviour and her mother’s inability to hold him accountable. After he is arrested for committing a crime, he begins to reconsider his attitude toward life and starts to de-centre himself.
This is a powerful story about the lies that patriarchy tells men about masculinity. Although it sits at the bottom of my ranking, I particularly loved this story because of its raw and honest perspective on the complex relationship between mothers and their sons.
It is part of her 2009 short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, but was first published in 2007 in The New Yorker.
Where to read: The New Yorker
Where to buy: Rovingheights Books
9. On Monday of Last Week
On Monday of Last Week follows Kamara, an immigrant in the U.S. who starts a job as a nanny and begins to interrogate her queerness. Hired by the husband, Kamara’s perceptions shift when the wife, an artist, asks her to undress. This interaction leads Kamara to consider what it might feel like to be with her.
Part of Chimamanda’s The Thing Around Your Neck collection, the story delves into themes of identity, desire, and the complexities of sexual awakening in an unfamiliar cultural context. It was first published in Granta magazine in 2007 and has been adapted into a short film.
Where to read: Granta Magazine
Where to buy: Rovingheights Books
8. Imitation
Nkem, a young wife living in the US, learns that her husband is having an affair with a younger woman in Nigeria, and she immediately feels threatened. Her friend in Nigeria regularly updates her about her husband’s new relationship, but when Nkem discovers that he has moved his mistress into their Lagos home, she realizes she must act. Determined, she decides to return to Lagos with her two children.
Imitation, part of Chimamanda’s The Thing Around Your Neck collection, is a story about infidelity and the strain of a distant relationship. It explores how distance can lead to emotional disconnection and the ultimate unravelling of a marriage.
Where to buy: Rovingheights Books
7. The Shivering
After the Sosoliso plane crash in 2005, Ukamaka’s Nigerian neighbor, Chinedu, shows up at her door, reminding her of everything she has forgotten about Nigeria. As he enters and begins to pray with her, Ukamaka’s mind drifts to the possibility that her lover might have been on the flight. But beneath his outwardly devout demeanour, Chinedu hides many deep secrets of his own.
The Shivering is a poignant story about the real struggles of queer Nigerian immigrants living in the U.S. It explores themes of identity, secrets, and the complexity of belonging — both to a home country and to one’s true self.
Where to buy: Rovingheights Books
6. The Thing Around Your Neck
A friend of mine once texted me after they had sex for the first time, saying they had “loosed the thing around their neck.” I can’t make these things up. But I digress, and I think I’ve already given away too much of the plot of “The Thing Around Your Neck,” a short story from Chimamanda’s The Thing Around Your Neck collection.
The story follows a young woman who, after escaping a traumatic experience with her uncle in America, moves out of his house and starts life alone in this new country. As she begins her new life, she notices something unsettling: a sensation around her neck that becomes more pronounced at night. It’s a powerful coming-of-age story that delves into the complexities of identity, survival, and the emotional scars that linger long after trauma.
Where to buy: Rovingheights Books
5. The Visit
The Visit is an Amazon Original short story, published as part of its Black Stars series. This speculative fiction piece by Chimamanda reimagines a matriarchal society where men are at the bottom of the gender hierarchy, and masturbation has been outlawed because it is considered murder.
The story follows a dutiful husband whose life takes an unexpected turn when an activist friend visits him. Their conversation forces him to rethink his role as a submissive husband, the career he put on the back burner, and the possibility that his wife might be having an affair with a clerk at work.
Where to listen: Audible
4. A Private Experience
Here, two women — one Igbo, the other a northern Muslim — from very different backgrounds take shelter together as unrest grips the city of Kano during Sani Abacha’s regime. Chika, a medical student at the University of Lagos, and the northern woman, a mother trying to balance family life, find themselves forced into an unexpected moment of intimacy and understanding.
This short story, published in The Thing Around Your Neck, explores themes of class, religion, and ethnicity. Yet, it subtly reveals how these perceived differences are, in many ways, a facade. When their safety is at stake, none of the institutions meant to divide them come to their aid.
Where to buy: Rovingheights Books
3. Chuka
This is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most recent work, published in The New Yorker in anticipation of the release of Dream Count. Adichie also narrated the audio version herself.
The story follows Chiamaka, a 39-year-old travel writer, as she ultimately rejects a marriage proposal from a 40-something hunk of an Igbo man — a charismatic, childless bachelor who is incredibly good in bed. The piece is unapologetically bold in its exploration of female desire.
At the heart of Chuka is a profound question that Adichie poses at the end of the story — one worth contemplating: “I was not grateful to have been loved. What is this gratitude to look like? Is it to be a state of being, to live adrift in gratitude because a man loves you?”
Where to read: The New Yorker
Where to listen: Spotify
2. The Arrangement
This is a very entertaining work of fiction by Chimamanda, published in 2016 in the New York Times. It is a fictional depiction of the then-candidate for US president, Donald Trump, and his wife, Melania Trump. It follows Melania as she reassesses her place in Donald’s life, even as her family powers through a presidential campaign. It is sharp, witty, and wickedly good.
Where to read: The New York Times
Where to listen: Audible
1. Zikora
Published in October 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Zikora is an Amazon Original short story that resonated deeply with me. At first, I listened to the audio version, performed brilliantly by Adepero Oduye, and then I read it — again and again. The language, as expected from Adichie, is lucid and rhythmic.
The story follows Zikora, who is ghosted by Kwame after he learns she is pregnant, leaving her to navigate childbirth with only her mother by her side. At its core, Zikora is a meditation on a woman’s right to choose, mother-daughter relationships, and — especially in light of Dream Count — the complexities of friendship.
Where to listen: Audible
