Americanah: Lagos, America, Lagos Again

Ifemelu, sharp-tongued and stubborn, meets Obinze at secondary school in Lagos. He is the calm son of a university professor, raised on American books and sure that his future lies in America. Around them, Nigeria under military dictatorship is a country people dream of leaving. Ifemelu's beloved Aunty Uju becomes the mistress of a powerful man known only as The General, until his death forces her to flee to America with her baby son. The love between the two teenagers is the thread the whole novel keeps returning to.

Location precision: The school and family homes are not identified; the pin marks Lagos Island.

Obinze's mother is a professor at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, and both teenagers go to study there. Campus life is sweet but stalled: students protest against the lack of water and electricity, lecturers go on strike, and the university closes for months at a time. With her studies frozen, Ifemelu applies to American universities, wins a visa and a scholarship to study in Philadelphia, and promises Obinze he will follow her. The university, founded in 1960, was Nigeria's first indigenous university.

After a summer with Aunty Uju in Brooklyn, Ifemelu goes to college in Philadelphia with an identity card borrowed from another woman so she can work. Money runs out fast. In despair she accepts $100 from a suburban tennis coach for sexual "help", is overwhelmed by shame and stops answering Obinze's calls and letters. A babysitting job with a wealthy family, found by her school friend Ginika, slowly rescues her, and through the family she meets Curt, a rich, cheerful white American who falls for her at once.

Location precision: Ifemelu's college and flat are not real places; the pin marks central Philadelphia.

Curt uses his family's connections to find Ifemelu a public relations job in Baltimore so they can live closer together. Told that braids look unprofessional, she takes them out and has her hair chemically straightened for the interview; the relaxer burns her scalp, and the damage later pushes her back to natural hair. The job brings her a green card, and life with Curt is easy, but she cheats on him and they break up. An exasperated email to a friend about race and beauty magazines becomes the seed of her blog, Raceteenth, which makes her name.

Location precision: The novel doesn't place Ifemelu's home or office; the pin marks central Baltimore.

After 9/11 Obinze cannot get an American visa, so he goes to London on a short visa and stays on illegally. He cleans toilets and delivers goods under another man's National Insurance number, paying the real Vincent Obi a cut of his wages, and lives in constant fear. To get papers he pays for a sham marriage with Cleotilde, a young Portuguese woman with an Angolan father. On the wedding day, at the civic centre, an immigration officer is waiting: Obinze is handcuffed, held in detention and deported to Lagos.

Location precision: The novel's London is spread across workplaces and lodgings that aren't identified; the pin marks central London.

At a conference for bloggers Ifemelu meets Blaine, an African American professor at Yale, earnest and principled, and moves in with him in New Haven. Their happiest time is the 2008 campaign, when both are swept up in hope for Barack Obama. But Blaine's certainty about how to live rubs against Ifemelu's independence, and a quarrel over a protest on campus nearly ends them. Adichie herself studied African studies at Yale, so the town is familiar ground.

Location precision: Blaine's house is not identified; the pin marks Yale's campus in New Haven.

Ifemelu's blog has made her a paid speaker and won her a fellowship at Princeton, a town she finds beautiful and oddly unreal. This is where the novel begins: she has broken up with Blaine, closed her blog and decided, after thirteen years, to move back to Nigeria. One practical problem remains: there is nowhere in Princeton to get her hair braided, so she has to take the train to Trenton. Thinking of home, she can't stop thinking about Obinze, now rich, married and living in Lagos.

Visitor guidance: The campus is open to walk around; trains between New York and Philadelphia stop at nearby Princeton Junction.

In a hot, cramped African braiding salon in Trenton, a much poorer city than Princeton, Ifemelu sits for hours while a Senegalese braider works on her hair, the TV plays Nollywood films and the women trade gossip. The long appointment frames the whole novel: while her braids take shape, her memories of Lagos, Nsukka and her years in America unfold. Before her hair is finished, she learns that Aunty Uju's teenage son Dike has attempted suicide.

Location precision: The salon is not a real business; the pin marks central Trenton.

Back in Lagos, now an "Americanah", Ifemelu rents a small flat in Ikoyi, paying two years in advance, and works as features editor of the women's magazine Zoe before quitting to start a new blog about the city. The noise, the traffic and the new wealth both thrill and annoy her. Obinze, now a property developer married to the beautiful Kosi, comes back into her life, and the old love proves stronger than the years. The novel ends with him at her door, asking for another chance.

Location precision: Ifemelu's flat is not identified; the pin marks the Ikoyi district.