ONLINE BOOK TOUR: BEYOND THE TRIAL BY Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha

 

Today, I bring you another book tour where you get the opportunity to read a brief synopsis and an excerpt from a collection of short stories. The author; Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha will be available to answer your general questions about writing and her works.  And wait for it, there’s a nice catch! There will  be a free book giveaway for one lucky participant! So, go ahead and share the link with friends and invite them to join the conversation.

 

BRIEF SYNOPSIS

Beyond the Trial is a collection of three short stories. The first story, ‘Erased Reproach’, is the story of young love and ruthless heartbreak. Funke, a teenager at the beginning of the story, gives in to peer pressure and ends up with an unwanted pregnancy which leads her into forced exile from her childhood home.  In ‘Rude Awakening’, Nkechi’s eutopic world is brought to a rude halt when her husband of eleven years dies suddenly in a car accident. She must face a chequered future alone with three sons. A family’s past is haunting its members in ‘Shadows from the Past’ and it is Ada’s responsibility, to lead her entire family out of darkness and into the light. A long-postponed visit home opens a can of worms about the past and provides the opportunity to deal with it and put it well behind them all. Beyond the Trial, is a collection of three short stories about three women who choose to see life beyond their trials and dare to reach for it.

 

AN EXCERPT FROM ‘RUDE AWAKENING’

Listen to the reading by the author here

The Emecheta family compound had been repainted in preparation for the funeral, but there were no new buildings or structures on it. It reminded Nkechi of the stagnancy of waters fed by streams of greed. Various canopies had been mounted in, and around, the compound. Most of them were labelled to identify the groups expected to occupy them. Some members of the groups were already sitting under the canopies in matching attires or headgears for the event. A traditional thatched hut (mkpukpu) had been erected close to the entrance of the compound. It was meant to be occupied by the male members of the Emecheta family after the corpse had been laid to rest. Mama’s golden brown casket occupied a small canopy in front of the main house.  A grave had been dug some distance away from it.

Seated in a bigger canopy adjacent to the casket were Mama’s immediate family members. Nkechi had no desire to sit with them. She identified a mango tree in a corner of the compound. She had enjoyed long conversations with Mama and Afam in the early years of her marriage under that tree. It held special memories for her. She dragged a white, plastic chair from underneath the nearest canopy, repositioned it under the mango tree, and sat on it. Uzoma did likewise.

From their position, they had a good view of the entire compound and the funeral proceedings. They ignored inquisitive glances from villagers who were wondering who the two fair-complexioned, bespectacled women were. When it came to the dust-to-dust rites, the officiating priest called for her with the public address system.

“Mrs Nkechi Emecheta, please come forward,” he announced.

Nkechi was speechless.  She looked over her shoulder as if expecting another person to come forward. She was aware the officiating priest was looking pointedly in her direction. So much for thinking nobody had recognized her! She could see Mama’s hand in this. She had assumed her quiet presence would be enough for Mama. She should have known her mentor better. One could have heard a pin drop in the deafening silence that engulfed the compound when she was called to step forward. As she stepped out, a murmur erupted as people whispered among themselves. Some people’s inquisitiveness had been assuaged.

She avoided looking at Papa, Chidi and Nwakaego and walked straight to the priest who handed her a spade with dust in it. Her dark glasses hid her eyes well. No one could decipher her feelings through her facial expressions. Today, she was a mysterious woman. The priest explained to her that Mama had requested that she take part in the dust to dust graveside rites. She did. She was taken aback when he told her Mama had also asked that she give the funeral oration. Nkechi was totally unprepared for this. Mama was favouring her above her own biological children. She dared not look at their faces even more now. The priest gave her the microphone and encouraged her to speak. These were Mama’s last wishes. It behoved them to honour her, the way she desired to be honoured, he explained.

Nkechi took a deep breath, pushed her sunglasses up onto her headgear, and in flawless Igbo language, she addressed the villagers. There was total silence.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha wrote her first unpublished novel at the age of six and has been writing poems, scripts, short stories, and songs since then, mainly for leisure. One of her poems, “The New Yam Festival,” won second prize in a nationwide poetry competition in 1983. She was the recipient of the silver prize at the Kanagawa World Biennial Children’s art competition in Japan in 1987. She was educated at two Federal Government Colleges (Enugu and Ijanikin, Lagos) and at the University of Benin Medical School. She holds a Masters degree with distinction from University College London.

Her debut publication Beyond the Trial is an inspirational collection of short stories published in 2015. It was nominated for the 2015 Dan Poynter Global EBook Award. In 2015, Beyond the Trial was featured in the London Book Fair, Book Expo America, Beijing Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair and the Guadalajara Book Fair. It was also featured in the 2016 Nigeria International Book fair in Lagos.

Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha is constantly trying to maintain a balance between medical practice, family commitments and her passion for writing. She is grateful for the inspiration and support she gets from her husband, family and friends. She is undecided which gives her more pleasure – writing songs or words.

 

Beyond the Trial can be purchased from the following bookstores:

TerraKulture, Laterna Ventures, Patabah bookstore, Bible Wonderland, UNILAG bookshop, Vog & Wod Bookstore, The Hub Media Store, De Prince Supermarket, CLAM Bookshop, and other leading bookstores nationwide.

Beyond the Trial can also be purchased online in the Paperback format via: Konga and Amazon. The E-book is available at these online stores: Amazon and KOBO

 

Now you can leave your questions in the comments section below.

 

ONLINE BOOK TOUR: BURY ME COME SUNDAY AFTERNOON BY NIKE CAMPBELL-FATOKI

 

Hello everyone, today I bring you the book tour of Nike Campbell-Fatoki’s new short story collection. For those who have not read the book, there will be a short description and I have also included my commentary on one of the stories below. Join the discussion by commenting, sharing with friends and stand a chance of winning a free copy of the book. You can also ask questions as the author will be available to respond to them in the comments section.

I found the stories in Bury Me Come Sunday Afternoon, engaging in a refreshing manner. In “Apartment Twenty-Four”, Campbell-Fatoki writes the African immigrant’s story with a fresh perspective. The major character, Ade is an archetype Nigerian immigrant, however, without the cliche dodginess. Ade’s internal conflict with Tamuno’s covert work is couched in an artistic subtext that encourages an individual interpretation. The usage of imagery is masterful and engaging. The resolution, ‘a drop it like it’s hot’ that leaves the reader panting at the finish line with bated breath and longing for more action.

 

Book Description

In this short story collection, Nikẹ Campbell-Fatoki filters the lives of contemporary Nigerians through a colourful and vivid prism, where past sins come to upset settled lives, where lost lives fuel a campaign for a better future and nothing is as it seems.  She explores well-known themes but delves a little deeper, questioning our ideas about people, our impressions and prejudices.  Bury Me Come Sunday Afternoon depicts the struggles of a young ambitious and hardworking Nigerian abroad with the same insightful candour as it does the tale of a brilliant but broken woman struggling with mental illness.

 

Listen to Nike Campbell-Fatoki reading an excerpt from “Apartment Twenty-Four” here

Transcript of the excerpt:

I knocked on the door of apartment twenty-four for the third time. The smell of iru (locust beans) filled the hallway. If I do not get this food in soon, occupants of the second floor will call Mr Theodore, the building manager, about the odd smell in the building. I shook my head and knocked louder. Footsteps approached the door. Tamuno opened it, his towel wrapped around his waist; dark hair covered his broad chest. When he looked down at me, his shaved head glistened. He looked well-groomed with a goatee. 

        “Bros, good evening,” I said, handing him the plastic bag of food.

         “You try for me, Ade. I swear! Ever since you introduced me to this restaurant I’ve been hooked! They put something for the food?”  Tamuno joked.  I chuckled.   

He invited me into the living room. I walked in as he grabbed his wallet on the arm of the recliner. He pulled out a wad of dollar bills and began to count them. I looked away. The living room was furnished with expensive furniture – the dark brown recliner complemented the seven-seater leather sectional and ottoman. He pressed the dollar bills into my hand and walked me to the door.

        “That’s for your transportation and for tomorrow’s lunch. Please buy me the stew with cow feet and ponmo next time.”  I chuckled and teased him about the weight he would start gaining. When we got to the door, I reminded him of the IT position I applied for at his workplace. “Did you have a chance to talk to the HR. manager yet? You’re one of my references, bros.”

        “I haven’t had a chance. You know I just got back from this business trip, and I’m in the middle of bringing my wife over.”

        “Oh yes! Congrats! When does she arrive?”

He smiled.“She’ll be here in less than a month!” 

        “You said she’s a minister’s daughter, right?  Which one?” I asked.

        “Not that it matters, but she’s the daughter of the Minister of Works and Housing.”

His phone rang somewhere in the apartment. He said he had to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He closed the door in my face before I could answer. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nike Campbell-Fatoki was born in Lvov, Ukraine. She is the second of four children born to Nigerian medical doctors in the old Soviet Union. A graduate of Economics with a minor in Political Science from Howard University. She also has a Master’s degree in International Development.

Nike juggles writing with her day job in budget and finance management at Prince George’s County. Her first novel, A Thread of Gold Beads was published in 2012. Her latest work, Bury Me Come Sunday Afternoon, was released in July 2016.

Nike lives in the Washington DC area with her family, where she is writing her next historical fiction novel set to be published in 2017.

 

You can order a copy of the book online at Quramo Publishing Limited, click the order form here. Also available at Patabah bookstore, Quintessence bookstore, Unilag bookstore and Salamander (Abuja).

Now, leave your comments and questions below. You can also follow the tour tomorrow at afreada.com.

 

 

IfeyWrites.com Hosts The Online Book Tour of Ifesinachi Okoli-Okpagu’s The Domestication of Munachi

Today, I bring you something fresh and unique on the wings of the World Wide Web. A virtual Book Tour by a Nigerian writer, Ifesinachi Okoli-Okpagu on her debut novel, The Domestication of Munachi. This is a great way to stay abreast of emerging Nigerian literature without the limitation of physical space. You will listen to some readings from her contemporary literary novel and she will be available to answer your questions. Are you a budding writer or a literary enthusiast who has some questions on composition, character development and feeding the creative muse? Ifesinachi Okoli-Okapagu will be available to interact with you on such matters.

In a society, where females are on a tight leash to marry ‘by force and by fire’, Ifesinachi’s The Domestication of Munachi captures the pressures on the girl-child with great mastery. For those, who haven’t read the book, a summary is provided below.

Here we go:

Synopsis

On a hot Sunday afternoon years ago…

…Two sisters walk in on their father’s sexual liaison with the family’s hired help which leaves them both scarred in different ways.

Years later…

Unable to bear the thought of marriage to a man she barely knows, the younger and more adventurous one, Munachi, runs away from home on the eve of her traditional marriage, unwittingly resurrecting a long buried feud between her religious mother and eccentric aunty. This conflict leaves a door open for the family’s destruction.

The Domestication of Munachi (DOM) is a novel about the unnecessary pressure on women to take on life partners, regardless of who these partners are and the psychological impacts seen through the stories of two sets of sisters—Munachi and Nkechi versus Chimuanya and Elizabeth.

Ifesinachi talks about her novel:

What Themes are Most Explored in DOM?

Author’s Response:

The three main themes that stand out are- One, the untoward pressure on young women to marry young regardless of their physical and psychological readiness. Two, physical abuse of women, especially married women and the society’s penchant to suddenly become blind to this until an irreversible damage is caused. Three, the deception of religion in our society today.

There are, of course, other sub themes such as family, the relationship between mother and child, adultery, long distance marriage, and so on.

Who is your Favourite Character?

Author’s Response: Hmm… Despite Munachi’s eccentricities, I do love her. She could easily be my younger sister; the kind that can be so annoying. I think she would be my favourite.

For some reason I also like Aunty Ngo. She featured on few occasions, but every appearance came with drama and a reveal of a slice of the life she is struggling so hard to manage. Then again I chuckled throughout writing her bits.

 

Listen to Ifesinachi reading from Page 87 of her novel: 

Read the text here

Listen to Ifesinachi reading from Page 125 of her novel:

Read the text here

 

About Ifesinachi

Aside wishing she could travel more often and she could stop answering questions nobody ever asks, Ifesinachi is a creative mom with the superhuman abilities to get bored when she’s working on a single project at a time. The Domestication of Munachi is her first novel.

In her regular life, Ifesinachi .O. Okpagu is a Lagos based marketing communications executive with over seven years’ experience, including being an Associate Producer of a pan-African TV show and heading the marketing communications team of an insurance company. She also serves as the chief custodian of the Lexiton brand with intellectual property in the media and entertainment industry. Her first book, a novella, was published when she was fourteen and was adopted as a secondary school recommended text in Delta and Ebonyi states.

She was educated at Queens College, Lagos, and at the University of Benin where she obtained a B.A in Fine and Applied Arts. Ifesinachi also holds a Masters degree from the Pan-African University where she graduated top of her class. She has written several stories, some of which have been published in Sentinel Nigeria, the African Roar Anthology and Saraba Magazine.

She has written/produced several screenplays for the big screen and for television.

You can’t wait to read the novel?

Click HERE, to buy if you’re in West Africa or HERE, if you’re in East Africa

Leave your questions in the comments’ section below and she will answer them. The Book Tour continues tomorrow at Bookshy and AFREADA.

 

Is Nigerian Literature Jinxed?

As I prepare to participate in a discussion on Nigerian literature and contemporary writing tomorrow at my alma mater, I find myself perusing on several thoughts. First, what exactly is Nigerian literature? Is it a work written by a Nigerian, a work about Nigerians or a work set in Nigeria? I will not try to provide an exclusive answer to these assumptions as it has not even been resolved in scholastic circles.

I find it interesting that the term ‘Nigerian literature’ is one of the few entities that expresses our national identity without recourse to ethnic restrictions. It is not likely that one will hear the expression, “Chimamanda Adichie, an Igbo author or Eghosa Imasuen, an Edo author unless of course the speaker was referring to the fact that they write in their native languages. However, it is not the same when the question is asked – ‘Are you a Nigerian? It is most likely that there would be a compulsion to give an elaborate answer – ‘yes, I’m Yoruba or yes, I’m Igbo.’ So, the concept of Nigerian literature evades ethnic distinction and embraces wholeness, and that is quite refreshing!

My major concern with Nigerian literature is in the definition of its character and style. Like most African arts, Nigerian literature evolved out of the background of protest. There was the initial generation of writers that wrote back to the empire, bemoaning a paradise lost through the travails of colonialism. However, it is disturbing that unlike some other African literatures, such as those steeped in the Negritude movement (one which celebrated the essence of black Africa), I have yet to discover a Nigerian work that celebrates the paradise regained, that is the period of emancipation from colonialism. Nigerian literature fell headlong into the disillusionment phase, a period when Nigerian (also most African) writers turned inward – mounting a social criticism against the evils of corruption embedded in the indigenous governance. There is hardly a Nigerian work, which does not feature some form of disenchantment with the state of our society, there is often the depiction of the ghettos where the poor citizens live and the exquisite abodes of the rich, etc. Therefore, disillusionment is a defining characteristic of Nigerian literature.

African-American literature also emerged from a protest background, creating a dissenting voice against the issue of race in Jim Crow America. It’s the opinion of some scholars that African-American literature has come to an end. I once read an article, Does African-American Literature Exist? by Kenneth W. Warren, where he posits that the issue of racial discrimination no longer occupies a focal spot in the present American society as much as the issue of class does. His point was that economic strength was becoming a stronger point of identity rather than race.

In relation to Nigerian literature, one which thrives on social commentary, will such a literature still exist if the conditions that birthed it dies? If we all woke up one morning to a Nigeria where everything works, will there be an emergence of a nouveau art which celebrates the newness and welcomes radiating joy and bliss in exchange for the disillusionment? Because I am a product of the woe-begotten generation, I cannot imagine such an utopia, it feels like a description of heaven.

Also in typifying the concept of contemporary writing and Nigerian literature, in most circles it is assumed that it comprises only literary fiction. Although, the expression ‘contemporary’ is subjective since it depends on the particular context being used. This is why some consider writings in the 70s as contemporary. I find it more comfortable to use the term, today’s Nigeria instead. There is that common assumption that Nigerians of today do not read. However, that assumption is fast eroding with the current burst of interest in reading and writing. Therefore, Nigerians may not always read books or write on paper – they are using the social media and blogs. I can almost imagine someone reading this with furrowed eyebrows, questioning how I can call those ‘bumbling pieces’ Nigerian literature. Yes, they are exactly that. Recently, someone was ranting on twitter that bloggers should quit calling themselves writers because that person had a particular definition in mind of what a writer should or should not be. Who is a writer? Simply, a writer is a person that writes.

Yes, I have read ‘stories’ on some blogs that made me don my educated-elitist-snobbery glasses, to view pieces where the writer misused ‘loose’ for ‘lose’, ‘respondent’ for ‘reporter’, where adjectives became nouns and adjectives took on tense variations and so on. However, I realise they are all stylistic variations of Nigerian literature, it’s a product of our society, of our ‘failed’ and ‘failing’ system, it is the fact of our fiction. Most times, when I scroll to the comments section of these blogs, I see many comments of excited readers waiting to read more and gushing over the ‘expertise’ of the writer. Yes, Nigerians are reading Nigerian literature in all its forms.

One other thing I noticed about Nigerian literature on blogs is the preoccupation with erotica. The passion and naked lust jumps boldly at you. I see this as the subconscious Nigerian response to our social realities. There are some statistics that say, African-Americans have a high rate of involvements in crimes. Also, post-apartheid South Africa presents a violent society with frequent rapes and street shoot-outs. Are these forms of escapist mechanisms? Are they the results of people subconsciously or unconsciously detaching from a painful past to blend with a not-so-pleasant present and an unknown future?

So, when I see the plethora of erotica Nigerian literature on blogs, I think of Nigerians that are known for smiling and suffering. With these writings, they are saying we want to reach out to our sublime, we want to touch our core, we want to feel passion and maybe,  just maybe they are saying we want fiction to be fiction not a reflection of our social realities – a world of blissful joy where the sky is ever blue without a dark cloud in view.

Is Nigerian literature jinxed? Will it die without its characteristic disillusionment? Or is it fated to remain in the disillusionment phase?

I wish I could proffer a certain answer but I do not know. It seems almost necessary to end this with a vague maxim common to the disillusioned:

Time will tell.

Americanah: an airy not hairy reading.

So I just finished reading Adichie’s third novel, Americanah and I get this sudden urge to write something about it. It can be called a review for those who love terminology or the naming of things.

My desire to read the novel became irresistible when I read angry comments on the social media, about “Adichie saying black women who wear weaves are insecure and suffer from low self esteem.” I gushed with a keen fascination. I found it interesting that someone would choose to write about the subject especially in this age of Brazilian, Peruvian, Indian and what have yous hairs. Not that I’m advocating for everyone going kinky afro. I don’t see myself doing that at present and I also don’t feel totally harmonious with putting another person’s hair on my head.  The tales of spirits chasing people in dreams and shouting “give me my hair” are sort of spooky and melodramatic. So, I feel more comfortable with the synthetic stuff.

When I read the novel Americanah, I realised it was about much more than hair. Yes, Adichie holds a fundamentalist view that black women should keep their natural hair but I did not see an outright campaign against straight hair or condemnation of the users of weaves in her novel. I think the crux of people’s protests is in the fact that they feel slighted that someone would think their “fashionable, trendy and costly hairs” belies their self acceptance. Therefore, Adichie’s preference for natural hair in Americanah seems like an effrontery – to question the African woman’s embrace of modernity.

I have always thought of Adichie as a star-studded writer, she came into the literary world riding on the crest of international prizes and encomiums which made local, (uh, sorry, the word ‘local’ may be considered derogatory) I mean native Nigerian writers experience conflicting feelings of envy and admiration. All the same we all love her, you will often hear the expression our Wole Soyinka, our Achebe and so we have our Adichie.

For those who have not read the novel, I will quote part of the synopsis on the book’s cover and my own summation: “As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America. There she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Thirteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger. Ifemelu returns to a Nigeria that has changed in societal nuances and landscape. She experiences the returnee’s conflicting feelings of loss for the America she has left behind and love for the homeland which feels everything but homely to her at first. Ifemelu begins to work for a lifestyle magazine but soon tires of its vapidity and starts another blog. In the end, she reconciles with Obinze, who leaves his hapless marriage.”

At the beginning of the novel, I felt impatient to get into the heart of the story. I was tempted to skip pages as I read the elaborate descriptions of a summer in Princeton that smelled of nothing or the long explanation of the idea of black and fat in American lingo. I almost found the descriptions tedious and even complained to a friend, that it must have been an editor’s effort to overstretch the narration. But as I continued the reading, I relaxed and began to enjoy the minutest detail of every description. I particularly liked the food descriptions:

“Mariama returned carrying oil-stained brown paper bags from the Chinese restaurants, trailing the smells of grease and spice into the stuffy salon.”

“It was also her summer of eating. She enjoyed the unfamiliar – the McDonald’s hamburgers with the brief tart crunch of pickles… the wraps Aunty Uju brought home, wet with piquant dressing, and the bologna and pepperoni that left a film of salt in her mouth….”

I could visualise and almost taste the foods off the pages of the book. Food fanatic, you say?

I found the dipping back and forth narrative technique enjoyable. Life isn’t lived on a straight line; there are so many curves and turns, so why should our stories be told with an artificial straightness?

Then, to the things I did not like or thought did not work. I found the secondary school romance between Obinze and Ifemelu very exaggerated. After reading a section of their conversation, I had to go back a few pages to check, if I had made a mistake and that they were already grown up and at the university. This is a part of one of such conversation:

“He said, Ifemelu is a fine babe but she’s too much trouble. She can argue. She can talk. She never agrees. But Ginika is just a sweet girl.’ He paused, then added, “He didn’t know that was exactly what I hoped to hear. I’m not interested in girls that are too nice.”

“…I thought you were so fine, but not just that. You looked like the kind of person who will do something because you want to, and not because everyone else is doing it.”

I mean, who idealises love at this philosophical level in secondary school? My point is not that children in Nigeria do not experiment with love or the sexual version of it early, of course they do. In my words to a friend, I said “Yes, in Nigeria, many school-age children depending on their exposure tend to start relationships and sexual experimentation early. So I agree they love but they don’t philosophise about loving….” Well, you could call it precociousness, since the educated elite status of Obinze’s childhood was clearly spelt out. However, such precociousness seems out of place in a juvenile relationship scenario. I also felt the same way about Aunty Ifeoma’s children in Purple Hibiscus, but in that circumstance it appeared more realistic.

There is another tidbit detail that felt so obviously out of place – this occurred in the novel, when Aunty Uju, a medical doctor is distressed by the news of a failed coup especially when she cannot contact the general, her sugar daddy. Due to her distress, an asthmatic attack is triggered. Adichie wrote: “Her panic had turned into an asthma attack. She was gasping, shaking, piercing her arm with a needle, trying to inject herself with medicine…” This popped out to me as highly unusual.  The most handy medication to curb an asthma attack would be an inhaler! This, a medical doctor should know! Although, the depiction of drops of blood staining the bedcovers seemed very picturesque and arresting, it was misinforming and unrealistic.

That being said, there is so much to love about this novel. At first when I started reading, it had that teeniest feeling of chick lit (one of my friends said, Adichie would faint if she heard me call her novel chick lit, lol. Anyway I didn’t say so. I said it felt like it at first.) That feeling wore off, as I started reading the treatise on the thingification of blackness – how Africans do not consider themselves black until they get to America and are painted black.

The blog excerpts that kept appearing here and there in the narrative imbued it with a kind of spice, an originality that sailed above fiction. I felt like I was reading something that Toni Morrison or Bebe Moore Campbell would have written about ‘blackness’ in America from an African-American perspective in the 21st century. I loved this part:

“In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here’s the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not…”

I also think the academia characterisation and dialogues helped to press the literary fiction stamp on the novel. Though, I’m beginning to think that for your novel to be considered as literary fiction, you must make sure you refer to real writers and poets, especially from the English tradition – Graham Greene, Samuel Coleridge and other prize winning ones like the Caribbean Derek Walcott. You must show the readers, that you have a literary mind, not so?

I don’t know whether it was just me or something about the voice of Ifemelu. I found myself going back to the cover page to look at Adichie’s photo every now and then, especially when Ifemelu made some cryptic statements about the issue of race in America or the deplorable state of affairs in the Nigerian polity. I felt the force of authorial intrusion in those moments.

And I must say this, I enjoy Adichie’s kind of humour – it’s a strange kind, not too obvious in its sarcasm, sometimes it needs to be turned in the hand, rolled on the tongue and chewed before its full import sinks in, resulting in deep mirth. For instance, sections like this:

 “She called Ranyinudo, and was about to tell her what happened, when Ranyinudo said, “Ifem, I’m so depressed.” And so Ifemelu merely listened. It was about Ndudi. “He’s such a child,”… “If you say something he doesn’t like, he will stop talking and start humming. Seriously humming, loud humming. How does a grown man behave so immaturely?”

I also enjoyed how the novel zeroed on the recent past, sidling through American politics, the novelty of a black president in America and the birth pangs of democracy in Nigeria. So many Nigerian books are staunched in that “glorious” fast-dimming past of the Nigerian Civil War and the era of military coups, so much that it has almost become a compulsory motif in Nigerian novels – if it does not appear in it, such a writing is considered flawed. It is not my opinion that our history as a people and a country is unimportant. We all need a sense of the past to get a true bearing of the present but when we get stuck in the past, the progression into the future is often a sluggish movement.

One of my favourite parts in the novel should be this, when Obinze talks about the Nigerian fascination for the new and stylish: “…we are Third Worlders and Third Worlders are forward-looking, we like things to be new, because our best is yet ahead, while in the West their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of the past.” I want this to be a truism on the lips of all Third Worlders – that we truly desire newness in all spheres of life. That we absorb newness because we are tired of the sameness of corruption and low living standards that permeates from our long tradition of acceptance and stolid silence.

I also liked the frank expose of the ‘going-abroad’ syndrome, showing how most of the Americanahs and Londoners truly fare over there. These are common stories we have all heard, of toilet washing and street sweeping, and Adichie has brought this out vividly in this novel. I wish one or two desperate hustlers will read Americanah and have a rethink and hope for a Nigeria where one can earn gbemu like Obinze did. Or maybe they would have to first go on the sojourn abroad and be deported before they can experience the ‘fictional’ largesse like Obinze.

Evidently, there is a moral shift in our realities. I found myself willing a comeback for Obinze and Ifemelu towards the end of the novel. I wanted him to choose ‘true love’ over ‘for better and for worse’ and I did not sympathise with Kosi, the abandoned wife. Maybe, this was the author’s intent, to make us question conventionality in its form – to query the sacrificial stance that Nigerians (or possibly most Africans) have towards marriage. “You’re married! So you’re doomed to remain in misery. It’s for the children; please don’t leave your marriage, etc.”

Readers of Americanah may choose to interpret the message inherent in the last two words in the novel, “Come in,” as a welcoming; an openness to freedom, to make choices above cultural and religious stereotypes.

It was an airy reading – fresh yet familiar.