The Nigerian edition of Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah is soon to be out, and I’m loving the cover. Nigerian artist, Victor Ehikhamenor, shared it on Facebook and captioned the image with the following statement:
Creating a cover for a book is akin to making a customized wedding gown. My new cover of Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah for @farafinabooks just landed on my desk. It’s always a pleasure working with the Farafina crew and the author!
Ehikhamenor is a critically-acclaimed artist who has made a name for himself internationally. His work is jaw-droppingly stunning.
It’s cool that Farafina, Adichie’s Nigerian publishers, commissioned him to do a custom artwork for the cover. They clearly care about Adichie’s work and understand the importance of a well-thought out cover. Besides, I can’t imagine that an artist like Ehikhamenor would come cheap. So kudos to Farafina for going all out—instead of slapping on some stock image as some western publishers do with their African publications.
Ehikhamenor has lavished such artistic attention on the cover that the result makes the book so much more pleasing to the reader’s eyes.
The multi-layered texture of the cover art that somehow ends up being minimalist enough to convey so much meaning is characteristic of Victor’s work.
The edition hits the stores sometime in December. For those who can’t wait till December, copies will be sold at the upcoming Ake Arts and Books Festival. Here is an image of the original artwork.
Images from Victor Ehikhamenor’s Facebook page.
P. November 13, 2014 18:13
I love the image itself but I still find the cover disappointing as it pertains to placement, type font etc and as I look closer and ponder on it more, I don't think it looks much different from western publishing cover art of African books. The aesthetic is still similar. But again, the stand alone image is something to behold. Kudos to Farafina for giving the book a custom art cover.