Book launch as a cultural event — Adichie's novel homecoming

Daily Maverick

5 days ago

The Nigerian author's first book in more than a decade was published locally, and Lagos celebrated in true African style.
When the announcement of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's latest novel, Dream Count, was made, it was regarded as a major event in African literature. The internationally celebrated Nigerian writer had not published a novel in the past 12 years, and her long-awaited return stirred both anticipation and speculation. In the post-Covid context in which the book comes, so much has changed in the world.
The first leg of her three-city homecoming book tour coincided with my stay in Lagos as a curatorial fellow at Guest Artist Space Foundation, dedicated to facilitating cultural exchange and supporting creative practices. After Lagos, Chimamanda took the tour to Nigeria's capital city, Abuja, and finally Enugu, where she was born and grew up.
As a scholar of African literature, I arrived here in search of literary Lagos. But my attachment to the city may also just be romantic, a nostalgia born out of years of reading about it in fiction. No doubt, Lagos is a city of imagination and creativity.
Chimamanda's book event was a reminder that literary celebrity, when it happens in Africa, can exist on its own terms. It's rooted in a popular imaginary that embraces both the writer and the spectacle.
Lagos superstar
The launch in Lagos took place at a conference centre on the evening of 27 June. The Muson is a multipurpose civic auditorium located in the centre of Lagos Island which can accommodate up to 1,000 guests. And on this night, the auditorium was packed.
When I arrived, the scene outside was buzzing. A crowd gathered in front of a large canvas banner bearing a radiant image of the author. It was more than just decoration; it was a backdrop. It was an occasion for a selfie, a digital marker that you were there. There was even a hashtag for this: #dreamcountlagos. People took turns posing in front of it, curating their presence in the frame of Chimamanda's aura.
The atmosphere was festive, electric. And yet beneath the surface shimmer was something more urgent: a hunger for story, for presence, for return. Perhaps that explains why people came not just to witness, but to be counted.
Inside the lobby, piles of Chimamanda's books were neatly arranged on long tables. People were not just buying a copy. They were buying several, in the hope that the author would autograph them. The sight was striking, almost surreal. In many parts of the continent, a book launch is often a quiet affair. Writers are lucky to sell a handful of copies. But this was something else entirely. This was not just a book launch, it was nothing short of a cultural moment.
It would have been easy to mistake the event for a political townhall. There was a VIP section reserved for the who's who of Lagos, but those class distinctions dissolved into the collective energy of the room. The auditorium was filled with enthusiasm.
Even after a delay of more than an hour, when Chimamanda finally walked in, she was met with rapturous applause. She wore a bright yellow dress, an Instagrammable outfit, suited for the many fans who rushed forward to take selfies with her. Chimamanda, no doubt, is as much a fashion icon as she is a literary figure.
On stage, she was joined by media personality Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, widely known as the host of the reality TV show Big Brother Africa. But here, he was also something more intimate: the author's friend. Chimamanda even credited him with being a 'great reader'. This is a rare compliment in a literary world that often separates celebrity from any real critical engagement.
Their conversation was relaxed and full of laughter, offering the audience both intimacy and insight. Chimamanda ad­­dressed the question that had lingered for years: her decade-long silence. She spoke candidly of writer's block, of the grief that came with losing both her parents in quick succession, and how that loss eventually reignited her desire to write.
Dream Count, she explained, is shaped by that rupture. It is one of the major post-Covid novels from Africa, and centres on the lives of four women. It is a book about love, friendship and independence.
Africans do read
When she spoke about her characters on stage, it was as though she was talking about relatives that the audience recognised. They responded by shouting out the characters' names, to the delight of the author.
When I asked people about the launch afterwards, many said that it was a very Nigerian event – big, colourful, exuberant, festive. It was indeed a celebration that felt communal, even joyous. It was also a public demonstration of how literature can still command space and attention, not just in private reading rooms or crammed bookstores, but on a civic scale.
This was a remarkable event because it defied the tired cliché that Africans do not read. People, mostly young, came out in their hundreds. They bought books, they took selfies with their 'favourite' author, they screamed the names of fictional characters as though greeting friends.
But more significant was Chimamanda's choice to work with a local publisher, Narrative Landscape Press, which produced the Nigerian edition of Dream Count that is now available and accessible locally, at the same time as its release in Europe and North America. That alone is a radical act.
In returning to Nigeria to launch her book, Chimamanda also disrupts the assumption that African literary prestige must only be validated abroad. Even though she belongs to a cohort of African writers shaped by the diaspora, she actively insists on presence – on homecoming – not as simply nostalgia, but as active engagement.
Of course, Chimamanda is an exception. Her stature as a global literary figure, combined with her deep connection to home, allows her to move between worlds with remarkable ease. Few writers command the kind of multigenerational, cross-class attention she does. I found myself wishing, though, that more book launches could carry this same sense of occasion, of meaning, of return. That they could gather people in such numbers, not just to celebrate the writer, but to affirm the African book as something still worth gathering for.
And perhaps that is what made this book launch unforgettable: not just the celebrity or the spectacle, but the sense that literature still matters here, and that it belongs to the people. DM