Fourth Estate to publish Adichie's Notes on Grief

Fourth Estate is to publish Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a “timely and deeply personal” book by the Americanah author following her father's death.

The book, to be released on 11th May 2021, is a work of meditation, remembrance, and hope which grew out of an essay that originally appeared in the New Yorker.

Nicholas Pearson, editorial director at Fourth Estate, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency.

The publisher said: “Last summer, as the Covid-19 pandemic raged around the world and kept her family members separated from one another, Adichie’s father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. In Notes on Grief, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving, about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief, and also about the loneliness and anger that accompany it.

"Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story —from his survival of the Biafran War, through a long career as a statistics professor, into the days of the pandemic, during which he’d stay connected to his children and grandchildren over video chats from the family home in Abba, Nigeria. As Adichie wrestles with his passing, she recalls her father as a remarkable man of kindness and charm, and a fierce supporter of his youngest daughter.”

Adichie's work has been translated into 30 languages. She is the writer of Women’s Prize for Fiction winner Half of a Yellow Sun, the novels Americanah and Purple Hibiscus and a story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, plus non-fiction books We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, all published by Fourth Estate. She is also a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.

Adichie divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Pearson said: “Notes on Grief is a moving tribute to the father Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie loved fiercely and whose sudden death devastated her. It will be treasured by readers for the light it sheds on the pain of navigating the loss of someone we love.”