There are novels which change the way you perceive life. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s third and most nuanced novel Americanah does exactly that. Her first novel Purple Hibiscus, the tale of a Nigerian teenager who sees her family breaking up mirroring the state of Nigerian society at that time, was on the Booker longlist. Her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun, the story of twins and how their lives are shaped by the civil war-wracked Nigeria, won the Orange Prize for fiction. Her collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck established Adichie as one of the most powerful voices in contemporary African literature. Now, with Americanah Adichie is closer to filling that gaping void left in Nigerian writing by the demise of literary giant Chinua Achebe, whose house Adichie incidentally lived in at Nsukka.
Amricanah is the story of strong-willed, opinionated Ifemelu and her high school sweetheart Obinze. They nurture dreams of studying together in America when their academic life in Nigeria hits a roadblock. Ifemelu, egged on by Obinze gets a visa and moves to Philadelphia to study. Obinze, however, fails to get a visa despite repeated attempts thus brutally putting an end to the Americanophile’s childhood dreams. He then manages to go to England and then lapses into an undocumented life cleaning toilets and almost getting into a “sham marriage” for a visa before he is caught and deported back to Nigeria.
The book is preoccupied with race. A Nigerian Igbo, Ifemelu’s first realisation that she is “black” happens only once she moves to America. (“I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America”) In a voice that’s certain and unsparing, but never bitter Adichie makes pointed observations on race and associated societal hierarchies. She points out that sometimes it’s not even about being “black”, what also becomes relevant is “how black” you are. In one instance her African-American boyfriend Blaine derides her for not being “sufficiently furious” because she was African and not African-American. In another instance Kimberly, a white woman who she babysits for keeps referring to all coloured women as “beautiful” even if evidence points to the contrary. And Ifemelu’s vehicle for these piercing observations is her blog “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black.”
However, despite a fellowship at Princeton, American citizenship and a massive fan following to her blog, Ifemelu, conflicted by a love for her country and for Obinze, decides to return to Nigeria — a decision met with much incredulity. Her hair braider Aisha disbelievingly asks her, “Why do you want to go back?” “Why not?” Ifemelu retorts.
In the opening chapters of the novel, Ifemelu discusses how much she loves Princeton, but it peeves her that she has to go to Trenton to braid her hair. “It was unreasonable to expect a braiding salon in Princeton — the few black locals she had seen were so light-skinned and lank-haired she could not imagine them wearing braids — and yet as she waited at Princeton Junction station for the train, on an afternoon ablaze with heat, she wondered why there was no place where she could braid her hair.” We are left wondering if this is probably one of the other reasons Ifemelu decides to return to Nigeria — the fact that she would never really completely belong.
The novel completes a full circle. In the beginning Ifemelu’s life revolves around fitting in. It was her phase of self-discovery. She relaxes her hair, she thanks the telemarketer who says she sounds American on the phone, she even has a white American boyfriend (Curt — referred to as Hot White-Ex in her blog). She has become what her Nigerian friends would call a true Americanah. Suddenly, the idea of having fit in perfectly revolts her. She fights back — first by embracing her kinky African hair and then by consciously giving up on her American accent. The final stage is when she decides to shut down her blog and return to the now-married Obinze and to Nigeria. She is back where she started. Later she tells Obinze, “The thing about cross-cultural relationships is that you spend so much time explaining.” With Obinze, it was like coming home.
The story begins with Ifemelu sitting on the salon chair getting her hair braided and flashes back and forth. The narrative, however, remains crystal clear and Adichie’s voice never once wavers.
But to say that Americanah is a book only about race would be over-simplifying it. It’s a book about loneliness and desperation, it’s a book about difficult choices and unrealised dreams. It is complex and dark in places, endearing and funny in others. But what is constant is that all its finer nuances and succinct observations notwithstanding, it is honest writing. We may not always like Ifemelu as the protagonist, but her admissions about herself are always real. She wonders if she sabotages her own life after breaking up with Curt, she looks in the mirror and finds herself “fat” and admits that she can’t get away with it by saying she is African, she also concedes that the only reason moving to Nigeria didn’t seem that tough was because she always had the option of returning to America. A lot of it sounds autobiographical. In fact, sometimes the feeling one gets is that Ifemelu is just Adichie talking about herself in third person.
Americanah has taut, crisp writing that’s empathetic but never sentimental and indulgent. The only occasional excess is the few extra blogposts that could have been avoided. But what highlights Adichie’s brilliance is her ability to verbalise subtleties. She captures the finer nuances of complex emotions like disappointment, outrage, conflict and despair with finesse. Her characters are never racial caricatures, they are whole people — flawed, confused, angry — but always real.