Celebrated Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about her new book, "Dream Count."

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says the writer's block she experienced after becoming pregnant with her first child was "terrifying". "It's a really frightening place to be, because writing is the thing that gives me meaning," the acclaimed Nigerian author, 47, tells the BBC's Emma Barnett.

In turns, the book shifts its focus to three other women and their dreams. There is Chia’s friend Zikora, an ambitious lawyer who is desperate to be a mother, and Chia’s brazen cousin Omelogor, a banker in Nigeria who has a crisis of confidence upon coming to America.

Celebrated Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie just made a return to fiction with her new novel, Dream Count, marking her first full-length work in over a decade since Americanah, released in 2013,

In her first novel since “Americanah,” she draws on a real-life assault as she follows the lives of three Nigerian women and one of their former housekeepers.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Dream Count” begins in the midst of the Covid-19 lockdowns, which means that this expansive novel of friendship is tinged from the start by an air of melancholy. The characters are Nigerian women from different rungs of their country’s upper class.

When her father died, the author of “Americanah” produced a slim work of nonfiction. When her mother died, she poured her grief into a sprawling 416-page novel.

Dream Count,” Adichie’s first novel in more than a decade, rotates between the stories of four women with roots in Nigeria.

Since her last novel, she’s had three children, lost her parents and courted controversy on issues from trans to Trump – and she won’t stop now

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 'Dream Count' marks a triumphant return to fiction, blending powerful storytelling with deep empathy as it explores the lives of four women navigating love, purpose, and justice.