Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie feels contemporary culture is guilty of “shying away from the all-too human possibility of contradiction”. Her fourth novel, Dream Count, deals beautifully with the fallibility of perception. It is told from the perspectives of four connected women — travel writer Chia, who grew up in Nigeria but lives in America, her best friend Zikora, her outspoken cousin Omelogor and her housekeeper, Kadiatou. The reader is treated to rich portraits of their love lives, their desires and their experiences of womanhood, from childbirth and painful periods to the indignity and unfairness of a ticking body clock.
