Nigerian Writer – …on the B.L.

Purple Hibiscus

June 22, 2018 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 307
Quick Review Set against the backdrop of a Nigerian coup, a 15 year old Kambili learns about love and life outside of her childhood home controlled by a religious zealot.

I love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is my favorite author, and I have now officially read all of her books. Purple Hibiscus is her first novel, and it’s beautiful.

Nigeria is in the midst of a complete upheaval. Kambili, a 15 year old girl, and her brother, Jaja, stay with their aunt and cousins in Nsukka. Kambili begins to realize the extent of her father’s religious fundamentalism and abusive nature when she compares it with the loving, open household her cousins flourish in.

Adichie explores so many interesting themes throughout the progression of the novel. Christian fundamentalism is a looming presence as Kambili struggles with her father’s oppression even when she is far out of reach. She is unable to engage with her surroundings, family, and even herself because she lives in perpetual fear of her father’s wrath and eternal damnation. The physical and psychological abuse Kambili, Jaja, and their mother live with is intense. Aunt Ifeoma and her children are the voice of progressivism.

I love Adichie’s inclusion of Igbo words peppered throughout the narrative.

I seriously suggest this novel to anyone interested in reading. It’s a beautiful and moving novel full of hope and heartbreak speaking to the resilience of the human spirit.

Memorable Quotes
“I was not sure what my laughter sounded like.”
“We didn’t scale the today because we believed we could, we scaled it because we were terrified we couldn’t.”

Title: Purple Hibiscus
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Collins (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2004
ISBN: 9780007345328

Books

Blackass

September 25, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 272
Quick Review A modern retelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis exploring identity through race in Lagos, Nigeria after a black man wakes up as a white man.

A. Igoni Barrett brings a new depth to a classic novel by diving into the complicated issue of race in Nigeria as well as the power of perception. Barrett writes with incredible wit.

Furo wakes up one morning to discover his once dark skin is now very pink and pale. Blackass follows Furo as he navigates the world he was once familiar with through very different eyes.

Furo is a young man in his early thirties. For the young and all ages in between, Twitter and Facebook have become incredibly integral parts of our lives, and Barrett is able to incorporate these aspects into the narrative. An entire section of the novel is dedicated to sleuthing through tweets, as we have all cyberstalked someone once. Barrett also describes the difficult challenge of trying to shut down a Facebook page and needing Google to find the answer. Technology has permeated every aspect of our lives including our literature.

Barrett explores how truly powerful perception can be both in favor and against a person. As people, we immediately begin sorting people into different classes by the way they look. Though we do our best to fight it, it is an intrinsic quality we have. Even the Nigerians tend to prefer whiteness to blackness in everything they do from the little things from bleaching cream to deferential treatment to blatant statements that white westerners are more together than black Africans.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is how well Barrett is able to capture the depth and range of the female experience in such a short novel. There are several women who weave in and out of Furo’s story. Each woman is able to portray a different woman’s part in society. In moments, I was astounded at the depth of understanding Barrett had for the female condition. It is powerful and moving in its unwavering honesty.

Barrett writes a captivating novel from beginning to end.

Memorable Quotes
“Then again, she had never faced the parental pressure he did – a woman can find a husband to take care of her, but a man must take care of his wife…”
“… I was already trying to say what I see now, that we are all constructed narratives.”
“A white man in Lagos has no voice louder than the dollar sign branded on to his forehead.”
“No one asks you to be born, to be black or white or any colour in between, and yet the identity a person is born into becomes the hardest to explain to the world.”
“Who I was as a person was more than what I looked like, but then again, how people saw me was a part of who I was.”
“Womanhood comes with its peculiar burdens, among them the distant reminder of subordinate status whose dominant symptom was uninvited sexual attention from men.”
“Pity the man who never becomes the woman he could be.”
“‘And you’re a white man. You don’t have to fuck anyone for favours.’”
“No one’s path is laid out from birth, we must all choose our own through life, and what greater gift is given a person than the chance to see the destinations where the roads not taken might have led you.”

Title: Blackass
Author: A. Igoni Barrett
Publisher: Graywolf Press (Vintage/Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2015
ISBN: 9781555977337

Books, Fiction

Half of a Yellow Sun

January 8, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 433
Quick Review If you want to read a novel about Africa and the consequences of colonization, this is it. It humanizes a continent, issue, country and people the media have consistently dehumanized. Incredibly relatable while highlighting issues spanning the world.

“Flawless” introduced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to the world’s dinner tables, bars, study halls, car concerts, Grammy’s, and the multitudes of other ways the pop-culturally aware socialize. I am not that person. I listened – just now, by the way – to “Flawless” by Beyonce because of Adichie.

I am the bibliophile extraordinaire. I would love to say I know about what’s going on in the world of Hollywood or music, but I don’t. I knowish what’s going on in the science world. Definitely the literary scene. Linguistics, I’m on top of it. My Western European pop culture references between the years of 1520 and 1890 are pretty top notch, but today’s world I can tell you what lol means. Can someone please explain what smh or af means? Snapchat’s Cosmo thingybopper consistently loses me lexically.

I had a Chinua Achebe revisiting phase a few years back. Adichie’s work was referenced in various places as they are both Nigerian writers of Igbo heritage. I stuck her on my list. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to put contemporary authors towards the end of the must read list. After putting her off for a good three or so years, I finally read one of her books, then a short story, then an essay, another short story, and now another novel.

Half of a Yellow Sun is fabulous, timeless, human, vibrant, and utterly engaging. The narrative follows several different characters through the early and late sixties during the war fought against Nigeria to found the independent nation: Biafra. The different viewpoints show male, female, rich, poor, business person, intellectual, servant, and those in between. With twists and turns, you’re never bored during a story, which could have easily been bogged down by sadness.

Adichie’s writing is graceful, and the five hundred pages go by easily. Though the writing flows, her ability to nuance is unparalleled. There is no wavering in the most difficult passages. She is straight forward with the simultaneous yet contrasting hope and anguish war brings. The imagery is striking and heartbreaking yet quintessentially human.

For a topic I knew nothing about, I could not have become more invested in a story so far away from my own reality. Through Adichie’s story telling, I have learned so much about a country I knew little about. I would absolutely recommend this book.

I watched the movie version. It was good, but like always the book is better. The screenplay had to leave a lot of really important things out, and I was disappointed. In general, I think it completely missed the point of the book: how normal and good people are affected, changed, and ultimately take part in the atrocities of war.

Memorable Quotes
“It did not kill me, it made me knowledgeable.”
“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man… Your life belongs to you and you alone.”

Title: Half of a Yellow Sun
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Anchor
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 978-1400095209