'Dream Count' is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel in more than a decade

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie hasn't published a novel in more than a decade. After writing literary hits like Americanah and essays like the popular We Should All Be Feminists, the author says she went through a period of writer's block. But now, she's out with a new novel Dream Count that tells the stories of four interconnected women. In today's episode, Adichie speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about a phrase that lodged itself in the author's mind and ultimately served as the book's first line. They also talk about a loss that caused Adichie to question how well she knew herself and a real-life sexual assault case that inspired her to write one of the novel's central characters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. From 2013 into 2014, it seemed like everyone in my life was reading Americana by Chimamada Ingozi Adichie.
0:13.4	Friends of mine were scouring bookstores for previous books she'd written, and when Beyonce sampled one of Adichae's speeches in her song, Flawless, forget about it.
0:22.2	Her literary stock went through the roof.
0:24.8	But then she stayed quiet on the fiction front, at least.
0:28.0	Until now, her first novel in more than a decade is out.
0:31.9	It's titled Dream Count.
0:33.0	And in this interview, she talks to MPR's Michelle Martin about how in the gap between Americana and Dream Count, she was learning a thing or two about herself, about how getting to truly know herself allowed the fiction writing process to start up again.
0:50.0	That's ahead.
0:51.3	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:56.1	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
1:00.6	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:02.7	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people
1:06.0	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:10.0	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:16.1	Nigerian read at Shuramanda and Gosi Adichia's first three novels won prizes and critical acclaim.
1:21.8	Two were optioned for movies and one, Americana, sold more than a million copies in the U.S. alone.
1:27.6	But then, for some reason, the words stopped.
1:31.0	I went through what people like to call writers' block,
1:34.2	which is an expression I do not like because I'm very superstitious.
1:37.8	She did write speeches and essays on feminism, human rights, and grief,
1:41.2	even a children's book.
1:42.6	But the novel eluded her until now.
	...

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