In and out of Africa

~ Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ~

This extremely accomplished novel is Adichie’s fourth: a marvellous discussion of the identities of middle class Nigerian immigrants to America and UK, as well as migrant returnees to Nigeria.

The central protagonists are Ifemelu and Obinze, school sweethearts whose teenage romance, compatibility, and attachment is disrupted some time after Ifemelu leaves Nigeria for America, to pursue a university degree. Some years after, Obinze goes to UK. The novel which is set in the ‘present’, when our protagonists are in their 30s, contains chapters providing episodes from their past, filling in their stories, a structure which works marvellously well in building up these characters, layer by rich layer, even as it details how Ifemelu and Obinze fare in the West, and how they readjust to Nigerian life upon return years later.

Adiche depicts a particular kind of African migrant – not the desperate, asylum seeking, traumatised migrant fleeing atrocities, but middle-classed, fairly well educated young Africans with many aspirations, anglophiles to some extent, Westernised, again, to some extent, and who regard the West as places of immense opportunity and privilege, while by comparison their Nigerian worlds were places of limitations and frustrations at some important levels.

“Alexa and other guests, and perhaps even Georgina [mainstream British citizens] all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him [Obinze] who were raised well-fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, were eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burnt villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty.”

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Adiche seems to give the reader the insider perspective, sharing how Nigerian immigrants watch others watching them, and surmising how they are seen by others (read Westerners), inviting the reader most temptingly to peep through Nigerian eyes.

This novel contains some truly elegant observations of the differences in migrant experiences between UK and USA, some heart-warming observations about comfort zones and emotional security blankets the diasporic community reach for, and some very astute observations about racial distinctions encountered by migrants on a daily basis. The migrant experience of race is not always as blatant or overt as racial discrimination would imply (although racial discrimination also occurs, of course); the ‘discriminative’ practices are not always illegal or to the level of harassment, but Adiche’s observations and depictions of situations experienced by Ifemelu and Obinze (and their other migrant relatives and friends) demonstrate the erosive qualities of the constant experience of being singled out, being incessantly marked as different, other, lesser, inferior, flawed, etc., and how this can be fatiguing, stressful, and cumulatively demoralizing, even debilitating.

This novel’s representation of the diasporic experience is specific, beautifully nuanced, and rings extremely true. Adiche details some of the pressures and expectations diasporic middle-class Nigerians face; pressures from their own communities in Nigeria and the migrant Nigerian/African communities in the West, pressures of their personal expectations and identity constructions and negotiations in a new space, pressures of adjustment and integration, as well as practical pressures of finances and employment and accommodation, and then just pressures from personal lives, romances, family relationships, etc. Her characters are remarkably human, not heroic, but sometimes gallant. They try to do their best, while questioning their code of ethics and values, and while goalposts seem to be constantly moving. They sometimes make mistakes, do themselves damage, act less than rationally. They face the internal conflicts many diasporic people face, of keeping up old relationships, in the old way, while they themselves are changing, but wanting somehow to retain some of the original texture and flavor of those relationships which help them to remember who they were, so that they can come to terms with who they are changing into, and try to get a grasp on who they are hoping to be. Although her story is on Nigerian migrants, it is likely the global diasporic community, especially the middle class one, would be able to identify with much in this novel.

Adiche’s depiction of diaspora is rich, satisfyingly so, thoughtful, never hackneyed, extremely warm, intricate, multi-layered, respectful but fearless and candid. The wonder of Adiche’s achievement is that she manages to represent the complex palatably, without compromising its complexity, not over-simplifying, but rendering the complex fascinating and accessible. Such is the hallmark of truly great writing.

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Anchor Books, 2014