For fans of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, two questions have been paramount: “Where is Kainene?” and “When is the next book?”
The culture icon’s second novel Half of a Yellow Sun and its ultimate character mystery arrived in 2006, three years after her debut, Purple Hibiscus, and seven years before her third, Americanah, in 2013. And now, after a space of 12 years, her fourth novel Dream Count will be released in 2025.
In the years since Americanah and the Beyonce sampling that launched her into serious fame, Adichie published several short stories and released three chapbooks: We Should All Be Feminists (2014) and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), in which she tackles feminism and gender equality, and Notes on Grief (2021), in which she contends with the loss of her father.
That year, for the fifteenth anniversary of Half of a Yellow Sun, she covered Open Country Mag, the subject of a major Profile by our editor Otosirieze, and discussed her family, loss, and awareness of her place in culture.
In 2023, she published a children’s book Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, under the pseudonym Nwa Grace na James. The book was written for her daughter, and the pseudonym, after her parents, positions her as writing for her mother’s daughter’s daughter, a kind of generational writing towards memory.
Billed as “a publishing event ten years in the making,” Dream Count will be available on March 4, 2025, in both the US and the UK, with a first print run of 250,000 copies. The novel will be published in the US by Penguin Random House imprint Alfred A. Knopf and in the UK by HarperCollins imprint Fourth Estate. The Nigerian edition will arrive from Narrative Landscape Press.
Here is the synopsis for the novel:
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America — but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.
One of the characters, Zikora, first appeared in her Amazon Original Stories short story “Zikora.”
Adichie wrote on Instagram: “I am proud to have finished it. I cannot wait for my wonderful fans to read it.”
Her team also posted the note on her Facebook:
DREAM COUNT is contemporary: Covid. Sexual assault inspired by a true story. Depression. A man’s extreme ‘ghosting’ of a woman. Fibroids. Teenage self-esteem. PMS.
But also timeless: Injustice. Dignity. Regret. What is a full life? What does ‘meaning’ mean?
DREAM COUNT is global: Brazil, Amsterdam, Conakry, Enugu, Maryland, Copenhagen, Mexico, Abuja, Korea, Santiago, Delhi, London, Cartagena, Anambra, New York, Portugal, Washington DC, Kenya, Germany, Italy, Addis, Switzerland, Zambia, Paris, Skopje, Lagos.
But quintessentially African at heart.
DREAM COUNT is provocative: Omelogor gives men helpful tips in a blog called “For Men Only.”
And multi-faceted: Zikora is devoutly Catholic. Kadiatou is a Muslim. Omelogor is agnostic. Chia is a dreamer.
DREAM COUNT revels in language. Some sentences sing, some are poetic, all are truth-seeking, especially about love. Solid have-your-back-for-life love between friends. Romantic love. The one who could have loved you. The one you want to love but can’t. The one you love but can’t call love. The one who should have stayed.
DREAM COUNT is serious and curious and probing and funny. The writing process has been arduous and has also been filled with ardor. I am deeply excited about this book. I am so proud to have finished it. I cannot wait for my wonderful fans to read it.
DREAM COUNT is available to pre-order now via https://sites.prh.com/dreamcount2025
~ CNA
The news has been greeted with elation by readers.
Buy Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s books. Open Country Mag may earn an affiliate commission from Amazon.
- Dream Count (2025)
- We Should All Be Feminists: A Guided Journal (2022)
- Notes on Grief (2021)
- Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017)
- We Should All Be Feminists (2014)
- Americanah (2013)
- The Thing Around Your Neck (2009)
- Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
- Purple Hibiscus (2003)
- The 3-Novel Collection: Americanah, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Purple Hibiscus
- The Full 6-Book Ankara Collection from Narrative Landscape Press
