Americanah

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Reflect on Ifemelu and Obinze’s experience of feeling like outsiders even within their home country. Have you ever felt like a stranger or interloper in a familiar place?

2. Have you ever had to navigate conversations about race and identity that made you rethink your own perspective, similar to Ifemelu’s experience writing her blog?

3. Have you ever left a place and returned to find it different—or to find that you had changed? How did this experience change your relationship to this place?

4. The novel explores the experience of long-distance relationships, both romantic and platonic. Have you ever had a relationship that was affected by distance or different life experiences? If so, how did you handle it?

5. Have you ever had to balance multiple cultural identities, or do you know someone who has? How do you think this affects a person’s sense of self?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Discuss the author’s portrayal of the differences between race and ethnicity in the US, the UK, and Nigeria. How do these distinctions shape Ifemelu and Obinze’s experiences abroad and at home?

2. How do Ifemelu’s blog posts function as a critical lens for racism in America? How do her observations reinforce and challenge existing narratives about race, privilege, and discrimination in contemporary society?

3. Analyze the novel’s exploration of Western beauty standards through the hair motif. How is Black hair a symbol of cultural identity? What does Ifemelu’s struggle with her hair reveal about the pressures of assimilation?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Consider the novel’s structure, including the use of flashbacks and Ifemelu’s blog. How does this structure support the novel’s characterization, themes, etc.?

2. Discuss Ifemelu and Obinze as foils. How do their parallel experiences reveal themes of both belonging and alienation?

3. How does each of Ifemelu’s different romantic relationships serve as a means of self-discovery?

4. Consider the importance of language and code-switching in the novel. How do characters manage multiple linguistic and cultural spaces while maintaining their identity?

5. Trace the role of books and reading in Ifemelu and Obinze’s lives and relationship.

6. Consider the motif of food: How does it symbolize cultural belonging and the immigrant experience?