Copyright Page

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2021 by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Original Stories are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

eISBN: 9781542032728

Cover illustration by Natasha Cunningham

Cover design by Alex Merto

Published in coordination with Plympton Literary Studio

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The American president was wearing too much makeup: her chocolate face powdered a shade too light, mascara clumped on her lashes, the smudge of berry lipstick like a small wound on her lower lip. She looked hastily prepared—her weave lank and in need of tonging—and she blinked at the cameras as she spoke. Before, this press conference would have been background television noise for Obinna, and if he did listen at all, it would’ve been desultory and perfunctory. Now, he watched closely, volume turned on high. He had always found it silly how many of his friends here in Lagos proudly ignored Nigerian news stations and watched only CNN, knowing more about the American Congress than they did about the Nigerian Senate, but he, for once, was behaving like them. He began obsessively watching American news about a month ago, after his old friend Eze called to say he was coming back to visit. The Male Masturbatory Act was all they seemed to talk about on the news, the forty-year-old law being challenged, with quick-talking pundits speculating about what the Supreme Court’s decision would be. And today it had been announced: male masturbation would remain illegal, punishable by up to fifteen years in prison.

The American president’s face was in close-up as she said, “I applaud the court for this just and moral decision. We must never lose sight of what this is about—a waste of a potential child.”