Dream Count offers reflections on identity, resilience, and friendship through the eyes of four women

📚 Nearly 13 years following her last literary work, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is out with her latest novel Dream Count — solidifying her status as a contemporary voice to be reckoned with. Taking place during the Covid-19 lockdowns, the novel is a social drama that prioritizes characters over plot, dissecting its four female protagonists, for whom isolation forces a confrontation with their true selves and the ghosts of their pasts.

The plot: The novel is structured into four parts, each narrated by one of the women. The characters include a Nigerian writer stranded in the US, her successful cousin, her best friend — a high-powered lawyer facing a devastating life trial — and a Guinean housekeeper struggling to raise her daughter in a foreign land.

What we liked: Adichie delivers a masterclass in narrative and depth. Her precise prose and evocative descriptions of her characters’ emotional states foster a deep sense of empathy. Beyond individual feelings, Adichie uses these characters to explore abuse of power, racism, double standards, and toxic relationships, as well as complex family dynamics — all without lapsing into preachy moralizing.

The novel expertly explores the friction and fusion between African and American cultures, giving a voice to immigrant women and the daily pressures they face regardless of their social standing. While the shifting timeline between present and past might be jarring for some, the fluid language keeps the narrative light, and the sharp attention to detail brings every scene to life.

The verdict: With Dream Count, Adichie presents a mature, complex, and deeply honest literary work. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in literature that deconstructs the intersections of race and class, or that forces a reckoning with one’s own life choices — which is to say, it was worth the 13-year wait.

WHERE TO FIND IT- The novel is available in paperback at Diwan.