Notes on grief
(Book)

"This is a slightly expanded version of a piece written by the author that originally appeared in The New Yorker on September 10, 2020"--Title page verso.

An exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's beloved father's death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. As one of millions of people grieving this year, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With precise language, devastating detail, and touches of rich, honest humor, Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father's death with threads of his life story, into the days of the pandemic in which he would stay connected with his children and grandchildren over video chat from the family home in Abba, Nigeria. This is a book that fundamentally connects us to one another as it probes one of the most universal human experiences.