Summary

In Chapter 27, Obinze is in a bookshop café enjoying his weekly treat of an expensive coffee and reading American fiction and American newspapers. He avoids the British newspapers because the articles about immigration frighten him. A woman and her son come into the bookshop and sit by him. Obinze’s conversation with the woman leaves him thinking about love and Ifemelu, so he texts a woman, Tendai, that he once met at a party. Tendai had offered to help him get his papers, but he know she would convince herself they didn’t just marry for the papers. While on the train on his way to Tendai’s, he sees a woman reading a newspaper article about immigration and wonders if she thinks he’s illegal. Later, on a train to Essex, he notices the car is filled with Nigerians and it...