Twelve years after her last novel, best-selling Nigerian author and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is making a highly anticipated return with "Dream Count".

The story recounts the intertwined fates of four women from Nigeria who emigrate to the United States and then find out their lives do not work out as planned.

At its heart is Chiamaka, a writer who defies tradition and refuses the marriage upon which her affluent family back in Nigeria had placed so much hope.

Zikora, Chiamaka's friend, fulfils her dream of having a child. But the father does not marry her and bails out.

Chiamaka's cousin has a successful business career but then gives it all up to go back to university.

And there is Kadiatou, Chiamaka's housemaid and confidante, whose American dream is shattered when she is sexually assaulted by a guest at a luxury hotel.

"I'm interested in how much of a woman's dream is really hers, and how much is what society has told her to dream about," Adichie told AFP in Paris at the launch of the French edition of her book on March 27.

"I think that the world is still deeply oppressive to........

© International Business Times