Notes on Grief | |
Author: | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
Country: | Nigeria |
Language: | English |
Genre: | Non-fiction |
Publisher: | Random House of Canada |
Pub Date: | 11 May 2021 |
Media Type: | Print (Paperback) |
Pages: | 80 |
Isbn: | 9781039001565 |
Notes on Grief is a 2021 memoir written by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.[1] [2] [3] Presented in 30 short sections, Notes on Grief was written following the death of her father James Nwoye Adichie in June 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic,[4] and is expanded from an essay first published in The New Yorker.[5] As The New York Times notes: "What she narrates is not only father loss, but the ways Mr. Adichie endures in having made of her a writer."
Upon release, Notes on Grief was generally well-received. According to Book Marks, the book received "rave" reviews based on nineteen critic reviews, with twelve being "rave" and seven being "positive".[6] In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (4.00 out of 5) from the site which was based on five critic reviews.[7] [8]
Reviewing Notes on Grief for NPR, Hope Wabuke said: "In poetic bursts of imagistic prose that mirror the fracturing of self after the death of a beloved parent, Adichie constructs a narrative of mourning — of haunting and of love." The Guardian review characterised it as "both emotional and austere, a work of dignity and of unravelling. Spare and yet spiritually nutritious". Ainehi Edoro in Brittle Paper observes: "In the book, grief is represented in a strikingly sensory language. ...Ultimately, the book is a portrait of her father."[9]
Notes on Grief received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, which concluded with the description: "An elegant, moving contribution to the literature of death and dying."[10]