Curlicues

摘要

With her fountain of irrepressible corkscrew curls, it is hardly surprising that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is preoccupied with hair. In her new novel, "Americanah", the Nigerian novelist and former Orange prize-winner writes copiously of braiding, curling, coiling, hair attachments, relaxer-any thing to tame an African mane. Her heroine, Ifemelu, "grew up in the shadow of her mother's hair. It was black-black, so thick it drank two containers of relaxer at the salon...and when finally released from pink plastic rollers, sprang free and full, falling down her back like a celebration."