tomorrow is too far... Chimamanda N. Adichie

It was the last summer you spent in Nigeria, the summer before your parents’ divorce, before your mother swore you would never again set foot in Nigeria to see your father’s family, especially not Grandmama. You remember the heat of that summer clearly, even now, thirteen years later, the way Grandmama’s yard felt like a steamy bathroom, a yard with so many trees that the telephone wire was tangled in leaves and different branches touched one another and sometimes mangoes appeared on cashew trees and guavas on mango trees. The thick mat of decaying leaves was soggy under your bare feet. Yellow-bellied bees buzzed around you, your brother Nonso and your cousin Dozie’s heads. Grandmama let only your brother Nonso climb the trees to shake a loaded branch, although you were a better climber than he was. Fruits would rain down, avocados and cashews and guavas, and you and your cousin Dozie would fill old buckets with fruit...

The above is excerpted from a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Tomorrow is too Far, published in the current edition of Prospect Magazine. Read the rest online, here.


Adichie is flanked in this picture by her brother, Chuks, and his wife, Tinu.
Taken at the Royal Festival Hall, London, April 2005.