Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah blows a gust of wind into the sail of Nigerians’ (and Africans’?) ship of fascination with America. Of the five shortlisted stories (four by Nigerians) for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing, three had something to do with America. Of these, Pede Hollist and his Foreign Aid spoilt the fun by being Sierra Leonian. Chinelo Okparanta’s America told of a woman agonizing over joining her lover in America, while the winning story, Tope Folarin’s Miracle, was set in a Nigerian church in Texas.

At its most basic, Americanah is a simple love story of Ifemelu and her lover Obinze, separated for years by the lure of America and London. Spurred by frequent and prolonged teachers’strikes, Ifemelu goes to America to join her Aunt and get “better education”. Obinze hangs on and later tries to get a visa to join her, but fails. Ifemelu cuts contact with him after “betraying” him in her struggle for survival in America. He is able to go to London later, but is deported when his visa expires. They both move on with their lives, with Obinze even marrying and having a daughter, until Ifemelu decides to come back to Nigeria. She becomes an “Americanah” – a returnee from America.

At a more fundamental level, Americanah is a novel about race in America from the point of view of Ifemelu, a “non-American Black”. It also portrays the struggle for survival faced by most Africans in the West after their “escape” from Africa. Most annoyingly from a male perspective, it is also a novel about – quite simply put– hair!

This is an exquisitely written book. Adichie masterfully creates characters that are as compelling as they are flawed – normal human beings who succumb, perhaps too easily, to circumstances, temptations, and expectations. From a purely whimsical point of view, she has written a story about the triumph of love. She tackles the main themes – race, struggle, love, escapism, and hair – in a subtly powerful way.

For instance, through Obinze in London, she captures the tempting motivation to “escape” from Africa, even among relatively well-to-do Africans:

"Alexa, and the other guests, perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they could not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him, who were raised well-fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned by birth to look somewhere else, eternally convinced that real life 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 burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty."

Race is by far the most dominant theme in the book, and Adichie uses every possible opportunity to detail Ifemelu’s experiences as a Non-American Black. The extensive elaboration – done also through Ifemelu’s successful blog titled Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-­American Black – renders a certain academic character to the book. It becomes a sort of treatise that I suspect may be overbearing for those not directly affected. I certainly skipped some of Ifemelu’s blogs, but some are provocative and powerful such as this:

"Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care… And admit it – you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black baby…"

Or this:

"So lots of folks – mostly non-black –say Obama’s not black, he’s biracial, multiracial, black-and-white, anything but just black. Because his mother was white. But race is not biology; race is sociology…It’s about the shade of your skin and the shape of your nose and the kink of your hair… If a random black guy commits a crime today, Barack Obama could be stopped and questioned for fitting the profile. And what would that profile be?“Black Man.”"

And some humorous such as this one, which my friends in South Africa can relate to:

"If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes… If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, please overpower that gene."

I think ladies will find Americanah most enjoyable, beginning from the question of hair. I am obviously biased, as I found myself resisting the temptation to reach for the TV remote or to skim through the pages whenever Adichie discussed female hair. Men (unless you are a hair stylist), be warned: you will feel left out of the conversation.

On a more serious note, Ifemelu is a relatively new kind of female character in African literature – strong, assertive, independent, and successful. Apart from being dumped by Curt, her white boyfriend in America, because she cheated on him, she has come off as being firmly in control in all her relationships. I identified very much with Obinze in the initial stages –self-assured, easy going, bored with his life – until he let the male species down in the ending. Feminists will smile all the way: Ifemelu cutting all contact with Obinze for years, then out of the blue contacting him, coming back to Nigeria, and seducing and manipulating him to the point of desperation. If looked at this way, one might miss the fact that the ending is almost cheesy (read it for yourself). I couldn’t help it but Mills & Boon romance (and a little bit of Nollywood) came to mind.

Gone are the days of female characters in African literature being the homely types with cheating husbands; nay, Adichie in fact secondarily papers over Obinze’s wife’s experience when she discovers Obinze is cheating with Ifemelu. I don’t know whether this, coming from a female author, is a triumph or not. For the moralizing kind, this is not your ideal read.

On the whole, a very interesting book. Get yourself a copy. Adichie makes some references to Nina Simone’s music. I made a point of getting a compilation of her hits, and I Put a Spell on You curiously took my understanding of the book to a whole new level.

Related Link:

Goodreads: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie