Lupita Nyong’o will be the lead character “Ifemelu” in the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah.

The Americanah adaptation will be a 10 episode mini-series on HBO Max and not a film has it had been previously announced.

Lupita and her fellow Black Panther actress Danai Gurira are also the executive producers of the Americanah production.

AWARDS

The novel Americanah is a powerful, tender story of race and identity by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun.

The title won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, 2013 and in the same year it was also listed among the New York Times Book Review’s “Ten Best Books of 2013”. Americanah was also the Winner of The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction, 2013.

Synopsis

Americanah tells the story of  Ifemelu and Obinze, who are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.