English Academy Review

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Zikora: A Short Story

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Amazon Original Stories. 2020. pp. 34 ASIN:
BO8K942N84

Kelechi Chioma Osigwe

To cite this article: Kelechi Chioma Osigwe (2021) Zikora: A Short Story, English Academy
Review, 38:1, 81-85, DOI: 10.1080/10131752.2021.1926106

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10131752.2021.1926106

Published online: 02 Jun 2021.

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 Book Review

Zikora: A Short Story,

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Amazon Original Stories. 2020. pp. 34
ASIN: BO8K942N84

Reviewed by Kelechi Chioma Osigwe

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0197-155X
Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Nigeria
osigwe.kc@gmail.com

The theme of motherhood and childbearing is not new in African women’s literature. In
fact, it is one of the recurrent subjects in most first-generation and second-generation
African women’s writing, including Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966) and One Is Enough
(1981), Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter (1981), Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen
(1974) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979), to mention a few. These women writers
focus so much on marriage, motherhood, and family matters that some critics have
described their works as “domestic literature” or simply “motherhood literature”
(Nnaemeka 1994; Ogundipe-Leslie 1987).

Despite this trend, these authors do not highlight the nuances of childbearing,
particularly labour pains and delivery, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has done in her
latest work, a short story entitled Zikora (2020). The new beginnings, or direction, in
women’s writing which Obioma Nnaemeka envisages for the new (third-generation)
African woman writer, who “must reinscribe herself in history on her own terms” (1994,
154), are manifest in this short story.

Zikora is a 39-year-old Nigerian-born lawyer based in Washington, DC. She narrates

the loneliness she suffers after being rejected by her lover, Kwame, and then her pain
while giving birth. She struggles with the realities of being pregnant and abandoned by
the father of her unborn child; the absence of her family, who reside in Lagos, Nigeria;
and her lack of friends and relations in the USA, where she resides. She goes through
all of this while also grappling with stiff competition at work with her colleague, Donna,
who is vying with her for partner position.

Zikora’s mother arrives shortly before the delivery to support her through the early
stages of labour, childbirth, and nursing the baby. At first, Zikora does not believe she
needs her mother’s help, as she believes she has done enough research and is physically

English Academy Review https://doi.org/10.1080/10131752.2021.1926106

www.tandfonline.com/racr20 ISSN 1753-5360 (Online), ISSN 1013-1752 (Print)
Volume 38 | Number 1 | 2021 | pp. 81–85 © The English Academy of Southern Africa 2021
 Osigwe

and emotionally prepared for this new phase in her life. After all, the decision to take
the pregnancy to term and have the baby was Zikora’s; Kwame, her Ghanaian-born
lover, an accomplished DC lawyer, did not agree. However, the prolonged labour,
combined with the emotional and physical stress associated with pregnancy and her
feelings about Kwame’s desertion, makes Zikora realise how much she needs people—
family, friends, and loved ones—at this point in her life. Zikora gives birth to a baby
boy and her mother reassures her that she will stay for an extended period to care for
Zikora and her newborn.

Adichie’s short story vividly explores some of the experiences women go through in
becoming mothers. These experiences range from the complexity of romantic
relationships, sexuality, childcare, physical and psychological changes and adjustment
to motherhood, and social and cultural transitions. The eponymous character, Zikora,
narrates her experience of the birth of her first child. Adichie adopts an autodiegetic
narrative voice through her protagonist.

The story begins with Zikora in labour at East Memorial Hospital. Although she had
researched and read widely on the topic, and prepared herself for the pain of childbirth,
she says, “This was not mere pain. It was something like pain and different from pain.
It sat like fire in my back, spreading to my thighs, squeezing and crushing my insides,
pulling downward, spiraling” (p. 5). Her prolonged labour makes her realise the
difference between psychological preparation and actual experience. The experience
helps her to empathise with her mother, who suffered three miscarriages after giving
birth to Zikora and was subsequently abandoned by Zikora’s father, who had married a
second wife in an attempt to have male children.

Similarly, she realises the extent of the pain suffered by her cousin and confidant,
Mmiliaku, at the hands of her insensitive husband, Emmanuel. He prefers to have sex
with her while she is asleep and impregnates her less than six months after childbirth.
Likewise, certain issues related to maternity and childcare, such as the maternal
mortality rate in the USA, which had previously not bothered Zikora, now become of
concern to her.

Adichie depicts various complexities in romantic relationships. First, there is Zikora’s

college crush, a basketball player who refuses to commit to her as he is solely interested
in sex. Second, Mmiliaku’s “penniless boyfriend” loses her to the “older and wealthy”
(p. 10) Emmanuel because Mmiliaku’s parents are not prepared to wait for her boyfriend
to find his feet. Third, Zikora’s father, despite his love for and commitment to his wife,
marries a second wife in order to have male children who will carry on his lineage.

Finally, the story depicts Zikora’s seemingly perfect love life with Kwame, who is
younger than her and earns less than she does. Their breakup comes as a shock to Zikora,
since there was nothing in Kwame’s character and attitude towards her that had
suggested such a possibility. It is the pregnancy, therefore, that leads to his desertion of

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her, because of his ignorance that unprotected sex could lead to pregnancy. He,
however, chooses to read the pregnancy as a “miscommunication” (p. 11) and
subsequently leaves Zikora.

On the subject of physical and psychological changes and adjustment to motherhood,

Adichie indicates that this transition can be handled better with the support and care of
other people, especially loved ones. Zikora is a financially independent, professional
woman who does not seem concerned about making friends, as she feels she can handle
things and situations alone. However, her loneliness after Kwame leaves her makes her
resort to regular phone conversations with her cousin, Mmiliaku: “I called Mmiliaku
again sobbing, saying I was scared to do it alone, I was scared to be alone” (p. 16).

Similarly, her mother’s care for Zikora throughout the prolonged labour and for her
grandson when he suffers from fits during his circumcision leads Zikora to value
people’s care and kindness (p. 27):

My son began to cry. He was fed […] and yet he cried. He cried and cried.
“Some babies just cry,” my mother said calmly.
What am I supposed to do with him? I thought to myself. It had only been a few days
[…].
“I don’t know what I’ll do when you leave,” I said.
“My visa is long stay,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere yet.”
“Thank you, Mummy,” I said, and I began to cry.

This is probably why Adichie chose the name “Zikora”, which literally means “gather
the crowd” in Igbo (Obinna 2020). It suggests that the transition to motherhood requires
more than one person’s input—the input of those of who are close is also needed.

In addition, Adichie presents various social and cultural changes in this contemporary
short story. Zikora’s romantic relationship with Kwame, despite the differences in age
and financial earnings, as well as their transnational background, is worthy of mention.
The union of Kwame’s parents, his father a Ghanaian immigrant and his mother an
African American woman, shows that this is not a marriage of convenience, as seen in
the lives of some economic migrants; rather, it suggests significant changes in how love
might be found in the contemporary world.

Lastly, Adichie modifies two ancient stories in her latest work. The first is the story of
a woman who is jilted by her lover because she is pregnant. Here, Adichie shifts the
focus of the story to the emotional anguish and bodily pain of pregnancy and childbirth.
The second is the issue of the preference for male children over female children, as is
evident in the relationship between Zikora’s parents. Again, Adichie shifts the attention
from the experience of Zikora’s mother to Zikora, who witnesses the transformation of
her parents’ marriage into polygamy, and its effect on her. Zikora initially blames her
mother for her father’s desertion subsequent to his second marriage (p. 25):

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 Osigwe

For weeks, I spoke to my mother only in sullen monosyllables, because I thought she
could have better handled it. If she had not raised her voice, if she had not pushed him,
my father would not have left. For some months, my parents were estranged. My father
did not visit us; he sent his driver to pick me up on weekends and bring me to his tennis
club, where […] he told me jokes but said nothing about moving out of our house.

However, the experience of Kwame’s desertion and the excruciating pain during
childbirth make Zikora understand her mother’s reaction towards her father better. She
is therefore able to have empathy for her mother because of her own experiences of
relationships and childbirth. One may then suggest that Zikora’s son comes as
compensation to her mother for all she suffered during childbearing, including “three
miscarriages, and an emergency hysterectomy” (p. 23).

Adichie utilises the short story genre to aptly and succinctly discuss the themes of
motherhood and childbirth. Her creativity comes to the fore, as she is able to present
real-life situations and stories that are easy to relate to. Her diction is simple, highly
descriptive, and conversational, aside from some medical jargon required to narrate the
procedure of childbirth. Her choice of narrative technique, the use of an autodiegetic
narrator, is appropriate, as emotional anguish and labour pain can be communicated best
by the one experiencing it. However, this narrative technique does limit the reader
by only revealing Zikora’s perspective; for example, we never learn Kwame’s reasons
for leaving Zikora. This notwithstanding, in this work Adichie has rewritten the
narrative of motherhood and childbirth in African women’s writing in her own terms,
thus representing the third generation of writers, who are not afraid to address
taboo topics (Hewett 2005).

References
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2020. Zikora: A Short Story. Seattle: Amazon Original Stories.

Bâ, Mariama. 1981. So Long a Letter. Translated by Modupé Bodé-Thomas. Harare:

Zimbabwe Publishing House.

Emecheta, Buchi. 1974. Second Class Citizen. Glasgow: William Collins.

Emecheta, Buchi. 1979. The Joys of Motherhood. New York: George Braziller.

Hewett, Heather. 2005. “Coming of Age: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the Voice of the
Third Generation.” English in Africa 32 (1): 73–97. Accessed July 7, 2015.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40239030.

Nnaemeka, Obioma. 1994. “From Orality to Writing: African Women Writers and the
(Re)Inscription of Womanhood.” Research in African Literatures 25 (4): 137–57.
Accessed July 7, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3819872.

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Nwapa, Flora. 1966. Efuru. London: Heinemann.

Nwapa, Flora. 1981. One Is Enough. Enugu: Tana Press.

Obinna, Emelike. 2020. “Zikora: A Journey to Motherhood.” Business Day, November 1,

2020. Accessed May 4, 2021. https://businessday.ng/life-arts/article/zikora-a-journey-to-
motherhood/.

Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. 1987. “The Female Writer and Her Commitment.” African
Literature Today 15: 5–13.

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